More on EE

As others have mentioned, many Microsoft engineers have spent the last three days attending talks and panels sharing best practices in software engineering. I think events like this become extremely important as a company grows to this size. It's hard enough to share thoughts on how software is built across a single product let alone the entire company - this forum has become the best way to get information on what teams around the company are doing to improve the way they create software.

It's also important to mention that all of the talks are done by MS employees (and almost entirely by non-executives). This provides a great opportunity for people to get exposure or practice their speaking skills. A lot of people apply to present every year, but due to time constraints, only a fraction actually get to present.

I was "fortunate" enough to present this year. I shared a presentation on metrics (which, incidentally, is the same topic I recently wrote a magazine article on) and thought it went very well. Given the dry nature of the topic, I tried to have some fun and get people thinking. From the feedback I've had so far, it seems that I was successful. Unfortunately, the data I presented isn't suitable for posting here, but at some point, I'll modify it to be publicly consumable. I've been bugged a lot lately about metrics, but I only see more coming my way and the research will inevitably find its way to this blog.