If you've read this, you would already know about this. Dave Cutler - arguably Microsoft (if not the century's) greatest programmer is moving from working on the NT kernel to the Live initiative.

I finished reading Showstopper just a few days ago - and for those of you who've read it, you can imagine how big a move this is for Dave. If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend that you do so - it changes your opinion of Microsoft and NT and software development in general. I've been hoping to meet Dave for a long time but I'm not sure how to arrange such a meeting (meeting Bill Gates seems to be an easier task!)

I've spent the last few days looking through the NT kernel code - especially the scheduler and related areas. Frankly, it is the most beautiful C code I've ever seen in my life. In fact, I told a friend "You feel like hugging and kissing it - it is so beautiful". It takes quite a programmer who can write code which is both insanely fast, robust but also so simple that someone new to kernel mode like me can still understand it (I even make half intelligent statements like "Ah..so that's how we pick which thread to run next").

I really don't know anything more than what is written in that article (we got a nice long mail from Kevin Johnson this morning ). This shows how seriously the company is taking the entire Live initiative. This is something we're in for the long haul.

The day DaveC left NT. Wow.

For folks unfamiliar with Dave Cutler and his work, let's just say that this would be like Linus Torvalds leaving kernel development to go do something completely different.



#