Hi all,

Now I am going to share my experience with JAVA when I tried to learn it for an exam. I request you to read and send your comments. Thanks in advance. Now lets dive into the “Identifiers & Access Specifies”

Word of caution: This series is definitely not for the beginners. The examples shown here were compiled and executed with JDK1.6

- A variable in Java can start with $ and _ characters

- In Java, we have four access controls (default, public, private and protected) but three access modifiers (public, private and protected)

- Default access modifier is default or package.

- A class can have only public or private

- There are three non-access modifiers in Java. They are strictfp, final and abstract

- Sun recommends reverse domain name for the package names, for example, com.sun.developers

- strictfp can’t be applied to a variable.

- strictfp means that the method or class which has this keyword conforms to the IEEE 754 floating point standard.

- final classes can’t be inherited

public class FinalClassExample extends FinalClass { }
final class FinalClass {
    public String toString () {
        return "Sakthi Rocks";
    }
}

- abstract classes can’t be instantiated

public class AbstractClassExample extends AbstractClass {
    AbstractClass AbstractClassObject = new AbstractClass();
}
abstract class AbstractClass {
    public String toString () {
        return "Sakthi Rocks";
    }
}

- If a method in a class in abstract then the whole class should be declared as abstract

public class AbstractMethodExample extends AbstractClass {
    AbstractClass AbstractClassObject = new AbstractClass();
}
class AbstractClass {
    public String toString () {
        return "Sakthi Rocks";
    }
    public abstract String Greet() {
        return "Sakthi welcomes you";
    }
}

As the the error directs, an abstract method can’t have a body

- Interface will tell, what a class can do but not how it will do

- All interface methods are implicitly public and abstract

- All interface variables will be public static final (i.e) an interface can have only constants

- Interface methods can’t be static, final, strictfp and native

- An interface can ENTEND only interface

interface ParentInterface { }
public interface InterfaceExtends extends ParentInterface { }

The thing to be noted here is we can extend one interface from another interface

- An interface can’t implement or extend a class or an interface

- To be able to access a default variable, the classes must be in the same package but for the protected they can be in different packages also.

- For a sub-class outside the package, the protected member can be accessed only through inheritance

- A final method can’t be overridden

public class OverrideFinalMethod {
    final String Greet() {
        return "Congratulations from Sakthi Priyan" ;
    }
}
class OverridesMethod extends OverrideFinalMethod {
    final String Greet() {
        return "Hi" ;
    }
}

- The first subclass of an abstract class must implement all abstract methods of the superclass

- We cannot combine abstract and static keywords

- synchronized and native can’t be applied to classes or variables

- native methods will not be having a function body similar to abstract methods

- You can have a variable length argument in a method with ellipsis operator (…)

Example : int Add (int… Numbers) {………}

- One method can have only one variable length argument

- Variable length argument can appear only at the end of the list of arguments passed to a method

class VariableLengthArgumentExample {
    int Add (int... Operands) {
        int Sum = 0 ;
        if (Operands.length == 0) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("No values supplied.");
        }
        for (int i : Operands)
            Sum+= i;
        return Sum;
    }
    public static void main ( String [] args ) {
        VariableLengthArgumentExample VariableLengthArgumentExampleObject = new VariableLengthArgumentExample() ;
        System.out.println ( "\nSum of 1,2 and 3 is        : " + VariableLengthArgumentExampleObject.Add (1,2,3) );
        System.out.println ( "\nSum of 1,2,3 and 4 is      : " + VariableLengthArgumentExampleObject.Add (1,2,3,4) );
        System.out.println ( "\nSum of 1,2,3,4 and 5 is    : " + VariableLengthArgumentExampleObject.Add (1,2,3,4,5) );
        System.out.println ( "\nSum of 1,2,3,4, 5 and 6 is : " + VariableLengthArgumentExampleObject.Add (1,2,3,4,5,6) );
    }
}

- Constructors can’t be marked as static, final or abstract

- Local variables are declared inside a method

- Local variables will be in the stack not in the heap

- If the local variable is for an Object then it will be created in the heap

- Local variables can take only final keyword

- There are no final objects but only final references

public class FinalReference {
    public static void main (String[] args) {
        final FinalReferenceDemo FRefDemo = new FinalReferenceDemo();
        FRefDemo.Demo_Variable = 10 ;             // No error will occur
        FRefDemo = new FinalReferenceDemo();      // Error will be thrown
    }
}
class FinalReferenceDemo {
    public int Demo_Variable ;
}

- Transient variables will be skipped while the object is serialized

- The entities which can be given static are methods, variables, local class and blocks

- The entities which can’t be given static are constructors, classes, Interfaces, method local inner classes, inner class methods, inner class variables and local variables.

(A)ccepts you as you are

(B)elieves in "you"

One day, Bill Gates was standing on a street corner, watching the clouds roll by. Absentmindedly, he dropped a $1,000 bill out of his pocket. A bystander noticed and said, "Are you going to pick that up?"

"No, why would I do that?" Gates responded gruffly, and walked away.

OK, fact or fiction?

While my version adds a little color, it's still just a fable.

You can mix and match the details, but the essence of the myth -- which I'll define as anything grossly inaccurate yet widely regarded as true -- is still there.

It's part fantasy, part fabrication, but wholly inaccurate.

Tech myths come in all shapes and sizes: Some contain a morsel of truth, but many of them are so wildly preposterous that it's hard to imagine anyone taking them seriously.

"A myth generally exists to explain the worldview of a group of people," says Rob Enderle, a consumer analyst. "This means its intent is to convey an idea but not necessarily the whole truth, and given it's conveyed largely from person to person, the initial story can change a great deal."

At the risk of perpetuating Internet-sized myths even more, here are some of the most famous examples of myths, along with some debunking and comments from those in the know.

Bill Gates dropped a $1,000 bill and didn't bother to pick it up

Bill Gates is one of the richest people on the planet, but the myth that he would drop a $1,000 bill and not pick it up probably originated in an e-mail scam. (Click on image for more information about this myth.) (Photo courtesy of World Economic Forum)

There's really no factual evidence for this one. If it happened, there's no way to prove it. Given the fact that the U.S. Treasury stopped producing $1,000 bills during World War II and stopped distributing them in 1969, it seems very unlikely Gates would carry one around. Yet, this and many other myths about Bill Gates -- many of them related to e-mail scams -- seem to become memes faster than other mean-spirited tech gossip.

Apparently, Gates is just an easy target who represents how an average guy (albeit one who is obviously very intelligent) can attain fame and fortune in the tech industry. Those who perpetuate the rumors are probably a little jealous. For its part, Microsoft told me that, officially, it doesn't comment on Bill Gates' personal life.

Another Gates myth is that he said "640k ought to be enough for anybody" when talking about an IBM PC's memory in 1981.

The iPhone 3G has a kill switch that Apple can use to disable the device

Is there a kill switch? (Click on image for more information about this myth.)

As with many myths, this one has a modicum of truth.

The reality, however, is much less interesting than the myth.

You can imagine Steve Jobs cackling to himself as he calls up an unsuspecting iPhone user on a giant screen and then, after pressing a button, watches as the hapless victim struggles to make a phone call.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the kill switch is actually just a way to disable certain unapproved apps that are used for hacking.

The company can't disable the phone at will, and calling software that disables malicious code a "kill switch" seems like a stretch. (I contacted Apple for an official statement, but it hasn't responded yet.)

Internet2 will replace the Internet

Internet2 runs through major swathes of the U.S., but the pipelines are owned by a collective headed by colleges and universities and there are no plans to make it public. (Click on image for more information about this myth.)

Ask a nontechie if something called Internet2 will one day replace Internet1 and that person will surely concur that it makes sense. Internet2 is actually a private network for a group of partners headed by colleges and universities and has no plans to ever go public.

In fact, the costs associated with Internet2 are so exorbitant (some connections run over 1Gbit/sec.) that it would likely take an act of Congress to make it freely available. And even then, the costs to run a public Internet at Internet2 speeds would be too high for ISPs and consumers.

And one further point: If Internet2 were the intended successor to the current Internet, companies like Sprint, Verizon and Clearwire wouldn't be busily laying the foundation for 100Mbit/sec. Internet. They would just wait for Internet2 to arrive.

PC gaming is dying or already dead

EBgames.com lists hundreds of upcoming PC games. True, when the top listing is a prison tycoon game, it doesn't look good. But when EBgames removes the PC gaming section entirely, it might be time to declare the platform dead for games. (Click on image for more information about this myth.)

Every major PC gaming magazine, and a few dead ones, have reported on the demise of PC gaming. It's definitely not a happy time to be a keyboard-and-mouse gamer, especially when a site like VG Chartz, which tracks game sales, doesn't even include the platform. Yet, while PC game sales have declined, there still are millions of Mac and PC gamers around.

EBgames.com lists no fewer than 170 pages of upcoming PC game titles, and franchises such as The Sims (a new Sims 3 version comes out this fall) and Civilization enjoy a loyal following. Casual PC gaming is also exploding, and sites such as Club Penguin and Barbie.com are overloaded with young PC gamers every day.

Apple is working on a MacTablet

Apple has already released a MacTablet -- it's called the iPod Touch, which is more portable than a tablet PC, plays music and movies, and uses your fingers as an input device. (Click on image for more information about this myth.)

Ah, yes. The elusive MacTablet. In many ways, the iPod Touch and the iPhone itself are better tablet computers than tablet PCs. They are small enough to carry around all day, can be used to browse the Internet and play music, and respond to finger input.

Microsoft has never gained any traction with its Tablet PC. If you buy one today, it comes with the same software that shipped with units from two or three years ago. It doesn't make sense for Apple to release its own tablet when it knows the market is so minimal and that notebooks are getting smaller and smaller. And as everyone in the tech industry knows, Apple never announces forthcoming products anyway.

Forwarding an e-mail has rewards of some kind

Not even Google Gmail can track the people who forward e-mails -- it would require too much computing power and it's an invasion of privacy. So why do we still do it? (Click on image for more information about this myth.)

I get forwarded e-mails almost every day. "Pass this on to save the whales," says one. "Send this to 100 people you know and win $100," says another.

Despite the rather obvious fact that no ISP could ever track e-mail forwarding from one user to another (partly for privacy reasons, partly for the sheer magnitude of collecting the data) and the fact that e-mail does not, in a technical sense, send forwarding data to any separate company -- even Microsoft -- this myth lives on. There's a mystical nature to chain mail, but one that is not founded on any legitimate dogmas.

Al Gore said he invented the Internet

Al Gore was misquoted. (Click on image for more information about this myth.)

Here's the most famous rumor of them all.

In truth, Al Gore never said he invented the Internet.

What he did say was something to the effect that he encouraged legislation that helped build the foundation of the Internet, as did many other politicians back in the day.

Will your computer science degree be replaced by a Web sciences one? It might as academics are increasingly dabbling with the study of the Web, but first a workable definition is needed.

In a treatise in Scientific American’s October issue, Nigel Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee make the case for Web Sciences as an academic practice. The challenge here is one of definition. What exactly is Web science? Turns out it’s a multidiscipline area that includes a little computer science, some physics

Berners-Lee and Shadbolt make the case:

Today more and more people’s jobs depend on the Web. Media, banking and health care are being revolutionized by it. And governments are even considering how to run their countries with it. Little appreciated, however, is the fact that the Web is more than the sum of its pages. Vast emergent properties have arisen that are transforming society. E-mail led to instant messaging, which has led to social networks such as Facebook. The transfer of documents led to file-sharing sites such as Napster, which have led to user-generated portals such as YouTube. And tagging content with labels is creating online communities that share everything from concert news to parenting tips.

But few investigators are studying how such emergent properties have actually happened, how we might harness them, what new phenomena may be coming or what any of this might mean for humankind. A new branch of science—Web science—aims to address such issues. The timing fits history: computers were built first, and computer science followed, which subsequently improved computing significantly. Web science was launched as a formal discipline in November 2006, when the two of us and our colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southampton in England announced the beginning of a Web Science Research Initiative.

This new academic discipline will combine a little of everything, but it’s unclear what exactly Web Science will be. The examples cited as Web science are well known: Google’s algorithms, semantic Web and the network effects of the blogosphere. But Web science is being cooked up as it goes along.

Berners-Lee and Shadbolt note:

It seems sensible to say that Web science can help us engineer a better Web. Of course, we do not fully know what Web science is, so part of the new discipline should be to find the most powerful concepts that will help the science itself grow. Perhaps insights will come from the work’s interdisciplinary nature. For example, biological concepts such as plasticity might prove useful. The brain and nervous system grow and adapt over our lifetimes by forming and deleting connections between neurons—the brain cells that act as nodes in our neural network. Changes in the connections occur in response to activity in the network, including learning, disuse and aging. Similarly, Web connections decay and grow. Web science could also explore the possibility of protocols that disconnect Web nodes if there is no inbound or outbound activity. Would such a network function more effectively?

Those are big questions, but I reckon they will get answered at some point. Web Science could be the major of the future. Thoughts?

The Internet began revealing its dangerous side more than a decade ago. As one veteran business analyst remarked, "Personal information on the Internet started turning into asbestos, becoming highly toxic. People started discovering a lot of it around."

Identity theft emerged, of course, and began ruining lives. Now, the analyst notes, "There are more obligations than ever to report an 'asbestos spill' and more consequences if you don't."

So today, we know better than to put our customers, employees, and others at risk because of sloppy practices with personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive data.

Or do we? 

A sizable number of U.S. small businesses still do not have privacy policies, or have ones too vague to be of any value. Meanwhile, companies of all sizes continue to scrimp on data security, or allow poorly trained employees easy access to sensitive information. Data breaches such as these compiled by the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse  are now legendary.

'Do unto others how you'd want them to do unto you'

If you run a small business, you likely handle some PII, even if it is simply the e-mail addresses you collect for newsletter distribution.

You owe it to your customers and employees to protect them from ID theft, scams, spam, fraud, and other toxic by-products of the Internet. And you owe it to your company and business partners to follow best practices, and the law, when it comes to collecting and storing sensitive business information. 

"It doesn't have to be that complicated. If you think about the data that businesses collect about you, and you do unto others how you would want them to do unto you, you will have [privacy] top of mind," says Carolyn Hodge, vice president of communications for online privacy specialist TRUSTe.Here are six tips to help you be smart and responsible when it comes to privacy.

1.  Take inventory of the personal information you collect and store. Privacy analysts recommend  compiling a written inventory of the PII you collect. PII generally includes names and contact information, physical addresses, e-mail addresses, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and the like. For example, does your Web site use cookies to capture info about who visits your site?

Know that any contracts and agreements you have with other businesses, and any trade secrets of other businesses that you may possess, also constitute sensitive information. Failure to protect such information could violate insider trading laws, among other statutes.

For more help, see this guide and tutorial from the Federal Trade Commission.

2.  Analyze how safely you use and store this data. Believe it or not, many small businesses are known to store private information on their customer-facing Web sites, which could easily be hacked. Many others allow employees unfettered access to such data. Still others are nonchalant about sending spreadsheets containing PII unencrypted over the Internet via e-mail.

Store private information on password-protected internal sites, and limit employee access to only those with a legitimate need to know, experts recommend. If you must send PII or other sensitive information via the Internet, encrypt it through password-protected ZIP files, encrypted e-mail, or S/MIME, PGP, and similar applications. Don't make it easy for hackers by scrimping on data security.

3.  Make sure you're complying with industry or federal laws. Strong privacy policies and practices may be mandatory if your business is governed by certain government or industry regulations. Here is a look at some of the statutes governing the privacy of information:

• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996  regulates businesses in the U.S. health-care industry.
• The Graham-Leach-Bliley Act, passed in 1999, governs the U.S. financial services industry.
• CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information)  governs customer information gathered by companies in the telecommunications industry.
• With its Security Standards Council, the Payment Card Industry  self-regulates retailers and other businesses that collect credit card numbers and related personal financial information.
• The European Union Directive on Data Protection  regulates U.S. companies serving European consumers and businesses.
• The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998  oversees the collection of personal information from children under 13.   

If necessary, companies such as WeComply, a Mt. Kisco, N.Y., concern, develop training programs for businesses on how to comply with federal laws regulating privacy.

4.  Post a privacy policy that is clear and comprehensive. A handful of states have their own privacy laws that are stronger than the federal laws, including California. Its Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003  requires all online businesses that collect personal information from California residents to post a privacy policy on their Web site(s) and to comply with their policies.

Yes, you need a policy, even if it is not required by law. Today's more discerning Internet consumer demands it, experts agree. "Simply having a privacy policy link on your site builds trust and confidence," writes Jeff Finkelstein of Boulder, Colo., in his Customer Paradigm  newsletter. Conversely, consumers may be suspicious of businesses that don’t clearly display their policy.

What should you include in your policy? Essentially, what PII you collect, use, and share in your business. Here are some key elements to disclose:

• Whether you buy or sell e-mail lists or mailing lists
• Any sharing of PII in co-marketing agreements with partners
• Use of cookies
• Information for customers to contact your business to be removed from a list
• If you sell online, how you comply with the Payment Card Industry's Security Standards

Your policy need not be lengthy — large conglomerates may have privacy policies of 10 pages or longer, but a small business doesn't need that. Conversely, some small businesses offer vague statements amounting to a single paragraph or two, says TRUSTe's Hodge.  Shoot for a page or less of clearly written text, and make the link visible on your site. (For more tips on how to write a privacy policy, download this PDF from TRUSTe.)

5.  Have your policy reviewed by an attorney or by a privacy seal program. It's wise to get an outside opinion on your privacy policy, either from an attorney or privacy expert. Another option is using an online privacy service such as TRUSTe  or BBBOnline.

The advantage of using a service such as TRUSTe or BBBOnline is that if you meet their privacy policy requirements, you are awarded a seal to display on your site — which may boost the confidence and trust of your customers.

"The Web privacy seal is one of [TRUSTe's] most popular products," says Hodge. A privacy seal may be most beneficial to small e-tailers with little or no name recognition outside their hometown or region.

TRUSTe has partnered with buySAFE  to bond purchase transactions and to supply privacy policies to small online retailers with monthly sales of $1 million or less. The buySAFE program runs $240 a year.

6.  If you have employees, make sure their personal information is protected too. It's easy to overlook employee data, as most privacy policies deal strictly with the interests of customers and clients.  But with today's increasing use of laptops, mobile devices, and social-networking applications as marketing tools, employee privacy is also in danger.

The nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse offers this guide to preventing ID theft  through responsible information-handling practices in the workplace.

One disturbing trend: An increasing number of ID theft cases have been traced back to dishonest employees obtaining sensitive information about fellow employees and customers and providing it to identity thieves.  Take note of two best practices in the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse guide: (1) Do background checks on anyone you hire and (2) restrict data access to employees with a legitimate need to know.

- Monte Enbysk

Some of my very cool colleagues in Canada have launched a great new competition to encourage people to think about what the world of education will be like in 2020.  They have graciously opened up the competition to both US and Canadian residents (apologies to those of you in other countries).  Check out the details of the competition here, follow the rules, and if your entry is selected as one of the five winners, you could receive CDN$5,000!

Part of the competition involves predicting the future of Windows Live, so why not also tag your entry with Clubhouse tags so the rest of the Windows Live community can read your entry too. 

Good luck!

Courtesy: Marcus

History

When IBM was developing the PC in the late 1970s and early 1980s it contracted Microsoft to develop an operating system and a version of the BASIC programming language to release with the new computer. The operating system was released as PC-DOS when included with IBM PCs and MS-DOS when sold separately by Microsoft. Both included versions of Microsoft BASIC.

DONKEY.BAS was written by Bill Gates and Neil Konzen to demonstrate the IBM PC and the BASIC programming language's capability to produce interactive programs with color graphics and sound.

The game continues to generate interest in part because of the involvement of Gates at a time when Microsoft was relatively small and only six years old. According to a speech delivered by Gates in 2001:

The first version of DONKEY.BAS was released in 1981, followed by version 1.10 in 1982. Although the operating systems with which the game was first distributed do not work on modern computers, the source code is still available. The game can still be played with the QBasic interpreter (a later version of the interpreters with which DONKEY.BAS was included) or in compiled form (see "external links" below).

Game play

The player drives a car and encounters a donkey in the road.

When the car hits a donkey both explode.

DONKEY.BAS is an extremely simple driving game in which the player controls a car but cannot steer, accelerate or brake, only changing lanes to avoid a series of donkeys on the road. There is no goal other than to avoid the donkeys.

The game uses the CGA display mode, the only colour graphics mode available on the original IBM PC. The mode allows four colours but in DONKEY.BAS there are usually only three on screen. The game's low-resolution graphics are very basic.

The center of the screen shows a vertical scrolling road with two lanes; the areas either side of the road are used for scores and instructions. The player's car is driving up the road and every few seconds a donkey will appear at random on one side of the road at the top of the screen. As the donkey moves down the screen the player can press the space bar to switch between lanes to avoid the donkey. If the car hits the donkey, both car and donkey explode, and parts of the graphics are scattered to the four corners of the screen to the sound of a short monophonic tune played through the PC speaker. If the player avoids the donkey, it will scroll off the bottom of the screen, and after a few seconds another will appear. There is never more than one donkey on the screen at any one time.

The game keeps score between the player and the donkeys. If the car hits a donkey, the donkey gets a point and the player is returned to the start of the road. As the car avoids donkeys it moves slowly up the screen, giving the player less time to react when donkeys appear. If the car avoids enough donkeys the player receives a point and the car is moved back to the bottom of the road. The game displays the number of points earned by the player and donkey but does not end or change when a particular score is reached.

Apart from pressing the space bar, the only control available to the player is to press the escape key and quit the game.

The Sprites is rendered slightly different depending if you are running DONKEY.BAS under the QBasic interpreter or the original IBM PC Basic/GW Basic interpreter.

The original version (not adapted for Qbasic) of DONKEY.BAS running under QBasic 4.5

The original version (not adapted for Qbasic) of DONKEY.BAS running under GW Basic 3.2

Naming

Although on the game's title screen it is simply named Donkey, today it is often known by its file name as DONKEY.BAS or Donkey.bas. This was the name of the file containing the program and like all BASIC programs in DOS used the ".BAS" extension. All versions of DOS that came before Windows 95upper case and this is often maintained when the game is referred to in writing. displayed file names in

Donkey .NET

As a programming example for the new .NET platform and Visual Basic .NET programming language, in 2001 Microsoft developed a game called Donkey .NET in homage to DONKEY.BAS. Donkey .NET is a three-dimensional driving game in which the aim is to hit donkeys. The game demonstrates to programmers how a Visual Basic .NET application can be structured and how to use various features of the .NET platform.

REDMOND, Wash.--Since taking over the Windows development reins from Jim Allchin, Steven Sinofsky has chosen to fall almost completely off the public radar.

It's not that he hasn't been busy getting Vista Service Pack 1 out the door and starting work on Windows 7. It's just that Sinofsky doesn't want to talk about products until they are well along in their development. Last year, Sinofsky penned a blog to his Windows unit co-workers, explaining his public silence and urging them to follow his lead.

Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft's Windows chief (Credit: Microsoft )

"I know many folks think that this type of corporate 'clamp down' on disclosure is 'old school' and that in the age of corporate transparency we should be open all the time," Sinofsky wrote. "Corporations are not really transparent. Corporations are translucent. All organizations have things that are visible and things that are not."

Well, Sinofsky is breaking his public silence, slightly, to offer a few important details about 7 (he reiterated that it is coming by January 2010) and to explain why he is saying so little publicly.

In an exclusive interview with CNET News.com last week, Sinofsky talked about how the new version of Windows is designed to build on top of Vista's architectural changes without adding things like new driver models that can increase compatibility challenges. Below is the edited, but still rather lengthy transcript, of our conversation.

Q: In contrast to the pre-release publicity for earlier versions of Windows, we haven't heard a lot about Windows 7. Why?
Sinofsky: We're always super anxious as engineers to talk about the work that we're doing. But on the other hand we really take seriously our responsibility of being part of the overall Windows and PC ecosystem. We want to make sure that when we do share information, that the information we share is accurate and reliable, and that we have in place the mechanisms for feedback such that the feedback is really taken seriously with respect to our plans. The reactions that we've had to some of the lessons learned in Windows Vista are really playing into our strategy of getting together a great plan for Windows 7, and working with all the partners in the ecosystem in a very deliberate way, such that the end result is a very positive experience for all of us.

How do you balance that with trying to make sure that people see a future in Windows worth investing in?
Sinofsky: Well, that's a great question. I think that when you say people, there are many audiences. What we're trying to do is be deliberate with each of the many audiences that we have to deal with, and give them the information such that they do see and share the optimism that we share for the future of Windows and the future of PCs. So, it's really an audience-specific type of question.

A lot of our readers are pretty passionate about computers, and we haven't heard as many reasons from Microsoft as we hear from your competitors about why people should be excited about the direction the platform is going in.
Sinofsky: I would talk about an example of the way that we see this playing out, which is the way that we've talked about Internet Explorer 8. With Internet Explorer, of course, we have a lot of enthusiasts or very activist people who really want to learn about the future of our browsers, and we put together a plan that had some really significant investments, and we started to talk about them when we felt like we could demonstrate that those investments were going to really pay off, and that they were going to be actionable. So, you saw us do the planning, come through with working with all the partners that we work with and the influentials in a very deliberate, very one-on-one kind of way, and then we started talking about it broadly. We were ready with a beta, and we were ready for people to really act on the work we had done, and provided us the feedback that we're actually ready to absorb and ready to put into action.

So, for the enthusiasts, who are really excited about Windows, well, first, I share their enthusiasm. And second, we're really going to focus on making sure that when we talk about the product, that they're getting information that is really what we're doing for the product.

Do you think that makes it hard for Microsoft and its PC partners in the interim, as they're trying to sell consumers on Windows at a time where we're hearing a lot of ads speaking negatively about Vista, particularly from Apple? Is that a concern to you?
Sinofsky: There are a number of elements of the question, and certainly what I would say is when it comes to our partners, the people who make PCs, the people who make hardware, the people who build software, of course, our work with them is constant and ongoing. So, they're not surprised at all in the dimension of the things that we're doing; we're just working with them in a way that's specific to our different audiences. A great example of this is our enterprise customers, who do have multiyear plans. So with them, our salesforce is equipped to have this dialogue, to really talk about the future and the road map of our products. We think that for each of the audiences we have the kind of information that's required for them to act on it.

My question is, in the absence of information from Microsoft about where it's going, it seems like you have your competitor, in this case Apple, on the consumer front really defining Microsoft in the absence of Microsoft defining Windows out there in the marketplace.
Sinofsky: In a way that's a different question. That's sort of a question about how are we talking about our current products in the marketplace. I think that Apple has a very visible campaign, and we work with partners, and have a very different approach to how we're communicating our product. In a way, what I would say is Apple isn't really talking about where they're going, and that was the root of your question.

When you think about Windows, what does a good release schedule look like? We've certainly heard loudly from Steve Ballmer that he doesn't want to see a five-year time frame like there was between Windows XP and Vista. How often do people want a new Windows release, and what types of things should change from release to release?
Sinofsky: The way that I think of planning a release of Windows is--and Windows 7 will be no exception--we look at it as it's a major undertaking, and we're going to produce a major release of the product. Then what we do is we work on the plans, we get feedback from different partners at different times in the plans, and really the disclosure is when we start to talk about the information that's actionable and exciting about the product. The timing of it depends a lot on what we wanted to achieve, and you've certainly heard us, and we've been very clear, and will continue to say that the next release of Windows, Windows 7, is about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista, and we're committed to that, and we've signed up publicly to do that.

So, when Bill Gates was speaking in Miami, and said that Windows 7 was coming in the next year, was he referring to when the beta version would show up?
Sinofsky: What I think I want to say is what I just said, which is we said we'd be out there with a release of Windows 7 three years after the general availability of Windows Vista. We're excited; the investments that we have are really about producing a major and significant release at that time.

When you think about Windows, as the ecosystem and the installed base has grown so huge, it seems like the testing matrix and the list of possible interactions is so large that it's become very hard to change Windows. Do you think you can keep changing the operating system the way that you generally have, or does Windows reach a point where you want to basically take what Windows is today and run it in some sort of compatibility layer, and so you can really start fresh? I know that Apple a couple times in its history found itself wanting to do that.
Sinofsky: I look at it in a little bit of a different light. All of those IHVs (independent hardware vendors) and ISVs (independent software vendors)...I look at them as the key asset to the Windows and PC ecosystem. So, I don't at all look at them like a compatibility burden or challenge, to use the words that you used, but I look at it as well, that's the big asset that customers look to when they buy into a Windows PC. They say, hey, if I bought this printer five years ago, I want to keep using it, and I want to keep using it as part of my PC network. If I have this other piece of hardware, I want to keep using it. We do have to get better at the work that we've done, and, in fact, sometimes we make very, very substantial changes that are really multiyear bets.

A great example of that in Windows Vista is the work that we did on graphics. We did do exactly what you said would be very hard, which is we re-plumbed the graphics infrastructure for Windows. That has a huge number of benefits for the ecosystem at large. It means the drivers can be made more robust, they don't have to run in kernel mode and things like that. But we also didn't execute on that as flawlessly as I think we all would have liked collectively as the ecosystem. The team worked super hard with the partners in graphics to really do a great job, but the schedule challenges that we had, and the information disclosure weren't consistent with the realities of the project, which made it all a much trickier end point when we got to the general availability in January.

So, were the problems with Vista support and Vista enthusiasm--it sounds like you're saying they were mostly issues of disclosure as opposed to execution on the product. Is that right?
Sinofsky: I don't really want to dwell too much on the views of the past, and sort of just tell you again the lessons that we learned in working with partners. The team feels this tremendous responsibility to working with IHVs and ISVs and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), because they're running businesses, they have their own business challenges, their own business goals, their own aspirations, and when we speak about what we might do, they will take it seriously. So, we appreciate that and we respect that, and it's a great benefit. But if we're not accurate or the information we provide causes them to do one thing, and then we change our mind, that doesn't bring the ecosystem forward. A big set of challenges that we learned...is making sure that the information we provide legitimately reflects the promises that we're making to ourselves and to the team as a product.

I know you said you don't really want to look back, so maybe looking forward a little bit...We haven't heard a lot about Windows 7, but we've heard about a couple of things discussed. The real areas I've heard a lot about are this idea of a new kernel, a minimum Windows kernel that came up in a speech, and then some stuff around new user interfaces. Can you tell us a little bit more about where those things fit in with how you guys are thinking about Windows 7?
Sinofsky: We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same. We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. Windows Vista was about improving those things. We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you've been talking about. The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well.

So, memory management, networking, process management, all of the security hardening, all of those things will carry forth, and maintain the compatibility with applications that people expect. Finally, we are going to make sure that the release is available both in 32 bit and 64 bit, which is an additional help for maintaining compatibility, particularly with device drivers. As the 64-bit ecosystem catches up, we expect more and more people, particularly enthusiasts, to be running 64 bit. For many people that's a great scenario today. I know I run 64 bit on most of my machines, including my primary laptop.

What was this idea then that got talked about in terms of a kind of minimum kernel?
Sinofsky: Well, why don't we stick at a higher level today, because I think that I don't want to really dive into the implementation details today.

Where do you see the biggest opportunities for the OS to matter in the coming years? One area might be new user interfaces, but people talk a lot about the browser making the OS less important. I know that's generally not a view that Microsoft holds, and usually not at all a view the Windows unit holds. So what are the ways that the OS can continue to matter?
Sinofsky: There will be a lot of features in Windows 7. It's a major release. I talked about the kernel and driver compatibility and (application) compatibility, but there is a lot more for us to talk about. We'll certainly be in touch.

Is one of the goals with Windows 7 that there will be more things right out of the box to get people interested in this release?
Sinofsky: Again I don't want to talk about any more specifics today, because we're focused today on how we're going to communicate things. But really again to really make sure I'm clear, we're working on a major release, and I think that each customer segment will have its own way of understanding what it means for them to be a significant release. And some of the things that we're going to do are going to make the release more applicable to a broader set of people, but it also might mean, oh, well, if you're not re-architecting the whole thing, then maybe it's not a major release. But we're actually going to bring forward the compatibility, and we're going to make sure that there's a lot of value for everybody who's a customer of Windows 7.

Are there any sorts of things that are happening in the overall PC world that are influencing how you guys are designing the operating system? I would imagine one of the things that certainly would influence it would be the sort of extensions to Vista, the Windows Live services. How important are online service extensions to the operating system going forward?
Sinofsky: The great thing about the Windows and PC ecosystem is that there's no shortage of activity in every dimension. Right now, today, we're really focused on just making sure everybody understands how we're going to talk about all of the things that we're going to do in this next release of Windows, but what we really want to do is kind of stay focused on that, and let us do a good job making sure that the things we are working on are really going to be great for each of the different kinds of customers of the product.

I think somebody that reads this conversation we're having is probably going to walk away again with an impression that I know you don't always like: that the Windows team is really being closed and isolated. I know one of the points you want to make is that you guys are talking to your partners. Is there more you would say about why is it important to be so selective about what gets shared ahead of time?
Sinofsky: So, everybody wants to know sooner than later what we're doing. And what we're always trying to balance is, well, if we make mistakes, then that has repercussions in the ecosystem that we don't really want to have, and we really want to be a responsible team as part of the overall ecosystem. If folks need an example, the best example that I could offer in terms of really trying to be respectful of the needs of the marketplace is really what we've been doing with Internet Explorer. I feel like we really worked on a great plan. The people who helped us to design how we were going to be compatible, how we were going to be compliant, the standard support that we did, were all part of the development process early on, all the outside parties.

Then we turned around and said, "OK, now we're ready to go to developers." We had a conference at Mix, and we talked about the development opportunities in Internet Explorer, because they were actionable. We gave people the code, we had published the specifications, we were ready to go not just for them to go do the work but for them to give us the feedback, and we were in a position to really act on it. That's really what we're trying to do with the next release of Windows as well.

I can understand why it's too early to talk about specific features in 7, but I'm a little surprised that it's too early to talk about some of your philosophies about where Windows has an opportunity to grow, and how things are changing, and some of those things, some of the factors that are influencing your work.
Sinofsky: Well, again I think what I would say is that we're talking about different types of customers, and different types of customers have different needs for information and are able to absorb it in a way that I think is mutually responsible.

If I'm understanding correctly, the things that you guys are ready to say about Windows 7 is it will be in 32- and 64-bit flavors, and the idea is that 64 bit will grow over time, although it's still kind of an enthusiast thing.
Sinofsky: Well, I didn't say it's still kind of an enthusiast thing; I did say I expect for sure our enthusiasts will be running it. It's actually professional graphics people who use it, industrial design uses it. There are a lot of segments that are very active in using it.

Do you think that 64 bit has come along slower than people would have thought?
Sinofsky: A lot of drivers haven't been written yet, and we expect that they're available now with new hardware, and we expect that that library will be built up over time.

Then the other thing that seemed like you were saying about 7 is that it will really focus on the underpinnings that are in Vista and Windows Server 2008, and so people should expect new features but not necessarily a lot of under-the-hood changes that require significant testing and so forth. Is that correct?
Sinofsky: I didn't actually say that. What I did say (is) that Windows Vista established a very solid foundation, a multiyear foundation, particularly on subsystems like graphics and audio and storage and things like that, and Windows 7--and then Windows Server 2008 built on that foundation, and Windows 7 will continue to build on that foundation as well.

You mentioned Windows Server 2008 being kind of the core on top of which you've built. Does that mean it gets some of the benefits of the modular architecture that the Server 08 release had, where you had this notion of a Windows Core configuration of Windows Server, and then you can sort of add pieces on top of that when they're needed?
Sinofsky: I think we've talked enough about the direction that we're heading with the specifics of the product today, since we really did want to focus a little bit more on just talking about how we're communicating with partners and customers and the ecosystem at large.

Do you think there's a risk that the more tight-lipped nature publicly will alienate some enthusiasts and folks who really want to know early on where you guys are going?
Sinofsky: There are many different models for disclosure that different companies work in, and I talked about the one that we're basing on the lessons that we learned from Windows Vista. But, of course, you could look at any of the other vendors in the marketplace, and see how they deal with disclosure, and come up with different models, and speculate about the pros and cons that they really see. I think that we're just focused--the No. 1 goal we're focused on is really the responsibility that we feel, and the respect that we have for all of our customers and partners, and making sure that what we share with them is really accurate and actionable, and that we are focused, like I keep saying, promise and deliver.

Let me just end with this. Look, we're working--the team is working super, super hard on this release of Windows, and you have to imagine we'd really be excited to start showing it to people. We want to show it, and we want people to get their hands on it, but we want to do that under the umbrella of being responsible members of the ecosystem, and being respectful of people's time and energy and the work that they'll put in to making Windows 7 great from the work that they can do.

So, why don't we say we're on target for the three years after general availability (of Vista), we're very excited about the release that we have, and we're very focused on promising and delivering.

The Windows 7 Team

Thanks to everyone who provided comments and sent me mail. I definitely appreciate the discussion we have kicked off. There’s also a ton of energy in our hallways as this blog started. It seems like a good thing to do to start off is sort of an introduction to the Windows development team. This post provides an overview of the team that is represented by this blog.

Before diving into the main topic, let’s talk a bit more about what to expect from this blog. First a few words on the comments and emails I’ve received. I’ve received a ton—most of the weekend was spent reading emails and comments. There are definitely some themes. I would say by and large the reception has been very warm and we definitely appreciate that. The most frequent request was to discuss Windows performance and/or just “make Windows faster”. There’s a lot to this topic so we expect to talk about this quite a bit over the next months. There are many specific requests—often representing all possible sides of an issue such as some folks saying “please get rid of (or don’t do) <x>” and then other folks saying “whatever you do it is really important to keep (or do) <x>”. A big part of this blog for me personally is having the discussion about the multiple facets of any given issue. Even something that sounds as binary as performance proves to have many subtle elements. For example, some folks suggested that the best thing for boot performance is to not start anything until idle time and others suggested that the delay loading feels like it slows them down and still others have suggested that the best approach is to provide a startup manager that pushes everyone to choose what to start up. All of these have merit worth discussing and also demonstrate the subtlety and complexity of even the most straight forward request.

Second, much to the surprise of both Jon and I a number of folks questioned the “authenticity” of the post. A few even suggested that the posts are being “ghost written” or that this blog is some sort of ploy. I am typing this directly in Windows Live Writer and hitting publish. This blog is the real deal—typos, mistakes, and all. There’s no intermediary or vetting of the posts. We have folks on the team who will be contributing, but we’re not having any posts written by anyone other than who signs it. We will us one user name for all the posts since that keeps the blog security and ownership clear, but posts will be signed by the person that hit publish. (If I participate in the comments I will use my msdn name, steven_sinofsky.)

And third, what frequency should folks expect and when do we get to the “features of Windows 7”. When we wrote that we would post “regularly” we meant that we don’t have a schedule or calendar of posts and we don’t want to commit to an artificial frequency which generally seems inconsistent with blogging. We do expect to follow a pattern similar to what you have become familiar with on the IEBlog. FWIW, on my internal blog no one has yet accused me of not contributing enough. :-)

As we said in the introductory post we think it will be good to talk about the engineering of Windows 7 (the “how”) and the first step is establishing who the engineers are that do the engineering before we dive into the product itself (the “why” and “what”).

So let’s meet the team...

It is pretty easy to think of the Windows team as one group or one entity, and then occasionally one specific person comes to represent the team—perhaps she gave a talk at a conference, wrote a book or article folks become familiar with, or maybe he has a blog. Within Microsoft, the Windows product is really a product of the whole company with people across all the development groups contributing in some form or another. The Windows engineering team “proper” is jointly managed by Jon and me. Jon manages the core operating system, which is, among many things, the kernel, device infrastructure, networking, and the engineering tools and system (all of which are both client and server). I am part of the Windows client experience team which develops, among many things, the shell and desktop, graphics, and media support. One other significant part of the Windows product is the Windows Media Center which is a key contribution managed along with all of Microsoft’s TV support (IPTV, extenders, etc.).

There’s a lot to building an org structure for a large team, but the most important part is planning the work of the team. This planning is integral to realizing our goal of improving the overall consistency and “togetherness” for Windows 7. So rather than think of one big org, or two teams, we say that the Windows 7 engineering team is made up of about 25 different feature teams.

A feature team represents those that own a specific part of Windows 7—the code, features, quality, and overall development. The feature teams represent the locus of work and coordination across the team. This also provides a much more manageable size—feature teams fit in meeting spaces, can go to movies, and so on. On average a feature team is about 40 developers, but there are a variety of team sizes. There are two parts to a feature team: what the team works on and who makes up a team.

Windows 7’s feature teams sound a lot like parts of Windows with which you are familiar. Because of the platform elements of Windows we have many teams that have remained fairly constant over several releases, whereas some teams are brand new or represent relatively new areas composed of some new code and the code that formed the basis of the team. Some teams do lots of work for Server (such as the VM work) and some might have big deliverables outside of Windows 7 (such as Internet Explorer).

In general a feature team encompasses ownership of combination of architectural components and scenarios across Windows. “Feature” is always a tricky word since some folks think of feature as one element in the user-interface and others think of the feature as a traditional architectural component (say TCP/IP). Our approach is to balance across scenarios and architecture such that we have the right level of end-to-end coverage and the right parts of the architecture. One thing we do try to avoid is separating the “plumbing” from the “user interface” so that teams do have end-to-end ownership of work (as an example of that, “Find and Organize” builds both the indexer and the user interface for search). Some of the main feature teams for Windows 7 include (alphabetically):

• Applets and Gadgets
• Assistance and Support Technologies
• Core User Experience
• Customer Engineering and Telemetry
• Deployment and Component Platform
• Desktop Graphics
• Devices and Media
• Devices and Storage
• Documents and Printing
• Engineering System and Tools
• File System
• Find and Organize
• Fundamentals
• Internet Explorer (including IE 8 down-level)
• International
• Kernel & VM
• Media Center
• Networking - Core
• Networking - Enterprise
• Networking - Wireless
• Security
• User Interface Platform
• Windows App Platform

I think most of these names are intuitive enough for the purposes of this post—as we post more the members of the team will identify which feature team they are on. This gives you an idea of the subsystems of Windows and how we break down a significant project into meaningful teams. Of course throughout the project we are coordinating and building features across teams. This is a matter of practice because you often want to engineer the code in one set of layers for efficiency and performance (say bottom up), but end-users might experience it across layers, and IT pros might want to manage a desktop from the top-down. I admit sometimes this is a little bit too much of an insider view as you can’t see where some interesting things “live”. For example, the tablet and inking functionality is in our User Interface Platform team along with speech recognition, multi-touch and accessibility. The reason for this is the architectural need to share the infrastructure for all mechanisms of “input” even if any one person might not cross all those layers. This way when we design the APIs for managing input, developers will see the benefits of all the modes of user interaction through one set of APIs.

The other aspect of our feature teams is the exact composition. A feature team represents three core engineering disciplines of software development engineerssdet or test, sorry but I haven’t written a job description externally), and program managers (pm). Having all three of these engineering disciplines is a unique aspect of Microsoft that has even caught the attention of some researchers. In my old blog I described dev and pm which I linked to above (I still owe a similar post on SDET!). (sde or dev), software development engineers in test (

The shortest version of these roles is dev is responsible for the architecture and code, pm is responsible for the feature set and specification, and test is responsible for validation and the ultimate advocate for the customer experience. Everyone is responsible for quality and performance, each bringing their perspective to the work. For any given feature, each of dev, test, and pm work as a team of peers (both literally and conceptually). This is a key “balance of power” in terms of how we work and makes sure that we take a balanced approach to developing Windows 7. Organizationally, we are structured such that devs work for devs, sdets work for sdets, and pm works for pm. That is we are organized by these “engineering functions”. This allows for two optimizations—the focus on expertise in both domain and discipline and also the ability to make sure we are not building the product in silos, but focused on the product as a whole.

We talk about these three disciplines together because we create feature teams with n developers, n testers, and 1/2n program managers. This ratio is pretty constant across the team. On average a feature team is about 40 developers across the Windows 7 project.

We also have core members of our engineering team that work across the entire product:

• Content Development – the writers and editors that create the online assistance, web site, SDK documents, and deployment documents.
• Product Planning – responsible for the customer research and learning that informs the selection of features. Product Planning also coordinates the work we do with partners across the ecosystem in terms of partnering through the design and development of the release.
• Product Design – develops the overall interaction model, graphical language, and design language for Windows 7
• Research and Usability – creates field and lab studies that show how existing products and proposed feature perform with customers

Some have said that the Windows team is just too big and that it has reached a size that causes engineering problems. At the same time, I might point out that just looking at the comments there is a pretty significant demand for a broad set of features and changes to Windows. It takes a set of people to build Windows and it is a big project. The way that I look at this is that our job is to have the Windows team be the right size—that sounds cliché but I mean by that is that the team is neither too large nor too small, but is effectively managed so that the work of the team reflects the size of the team and you see the project as having the benefits we articulate. I’m reminded of a scene from Amadeus where the Emperor suggests that the Marriage of Figaro contains “too many notes” to which Mozart proclaims “there are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required, neither more nor less.” Upon the Emperor suggesting that Mozart remove a few notes, Mozart simply asks “which few did you have in mind?” Of course the people on the team represent the way we get feature requests implemented and develop end to end scenarios, so the challenge is to have the right team and the right structure to maximize the ability to get those done—neither too many nor too few.

I promised myself no post would be longer than 4 pages and I am getting close. The comments are great and are helping us to shape future posts. I hope this post starts to develop some additional shared context.

--Steven