February 17th, 2004

The social skills of a thermonuclear device

Somebody@somewhere.else described me as having the social skills of a thermonuclear device. I don’t remember the incident in question, but I’ll have to accept that it happened. I have a very low tolerance for laziness. If you come to me for help, I expect you to have done your homework. (Though I try to scale my expectations to your position. If you’re in a coding position then you had better know how to use a debugger. If you’re in a testing position, then you had better know at least how to install the debugger. This is considered part of the standard skill set for a tester.)

But the absolute worst thing you can do is start a conversation by saying, “Hey, Raymond, since you know everything, can you do this for me…?”

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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