Met Chris Peters around the time of Excel 2 for Windows, the team must have been working on Excel 3 for Windows at the time. I remember walking away very impressed. I think the Excel team had 12 core members and Lotus had around 100. The Excel team kicked ass. Interesting to read his Shipping Software On Time. Very well written and clear. We did most of the things he mentions to stay on schedule ourselves.
Steven, any chance you could share the full Chris Peter's memo? I saw you posted the second page on Twitter, but it looks like there is more. Still feels very relevant today!
Steven, I'm a long-term fan of your writing, and as expected, I'm really loving your magnum opus. I was still in my mid-teens at the end of the eighties, but I can totally relate to much of what you're recounting, even though all of my experience - with various flavours of BASIC, in the very (very) early 80s, with Turbo Pascal (starting from version 2.0), with Windows (starting from 3.0, although I did see Windows 1.0 and even - I think? - Windows 386), Borlands tools in general, and Delphi (later) and OWL in particular, the mystique of NEXT, and so much more - took place in my bedroom, rather than an office. Out of all that, this particular point is, I think, particularly poignant and extremely relevant:
"Even more amazing, this tradition of cross-platform tools inadvertently creating new platforms without the resources to maintain or document them, or even to be competitive continues to this day."
So, so many toolkits that were inadvertently platforms without ever really realising it. And went away when the implications of this on maintaining said De facto platform become apparent.
Reading your story is a daily treat. Long may it continue!
Met Chris Peters around the time of Excel 2 for Windows, the team must have been working on Excel 3 for Windows at the time. I remember walking away very impressed. I think the Excel team had 12 core members and Lotus had around 100. The Excel team kicked ass. Interesting to read his Shipping Software On Time. Very well written and clear. We did most of the things he mentions to stay on schedule ourselves.
Steven, any chance you could share the full Chris Peter's memo? I saw you posted the second page on Twitter, but it looks like there is more. Still feels very relevant today!
Steven, I'm a long-term fan of your writing, and as expected, I'm really loving your magnum opus. I was still in my mid-teens at the end of the eighties, but I can totally relate to much of what you're recounting, even though all of my experience - with various flavours of BASIC, in the very (very) early 80s, with Turbo Pascal (starting from version 2.0), with Windows (starting from 3.0, although I did see Windows 1.0 and even - I think? - Windows 386), Borlands tools in general, and Delphi (later) and OWL in particular, the mystique of NEXT, and so much more - took place in my bedroom, rather than an office. Out of all that, this particular point is, I think, particularly poignant and extremely relevant:
"Even more amazing, this tradition of cross-platform tools inadvertently creating new platforms without the resources to maintain or document them, or even to be competitive continues to this day."
So, so many toolkits that were inadvertently platforms without ever really realising it. And went away when the implications of this on maintaining said De facto platform become apparent.
Reading your story is a daily treat. Long may it continue!
Is the "Shipping Software On Time" talk available anywhere for outsiders?