The Old New Thing

Microspeak - The Old New Thing

Microspeak: Bug jail

October 11, 2011 Oct 11, 2011 10/11/11
Raymond Chen
Bug jail is not a place where bugs are sent as punishment for their crimes. Rather, it's a (virtual) place that developers are sent when they have too many bugs. Project management establishes some maximum number of bugs (known as a bug cap) each developer is permitted to have on his or her plate, and developers whose bug count exceeds the ...

Microspeak: The bug farm

September 20, 2011 Sep 20, 2011 09/20/11
Raymond Chen
In its most general sense, the term bug farm refers to something that is a rich source of bugs. It is typically applied to code which is nearly unmaintainable. Code can arrive in this state through a variety of means. The term is most often used as a cautionary term, calling attention to areas where there is high risk that code you're ...

Microspeak: Reporting through

July 5, 2011 Jul 5, 2011 07/5/11
Raymond Chen
I'll start with the citation from a hypothetical conversation: "This is being handled by Jonathan Swift." — Who does he report through? "He reports up through Jane Austen's org." The Microspeak term report through (or report up through) comes up often in situations where people from different groups are working together. In its ...

Microspeak: PowerPoint Karaoke and the eye chart

May 24, 2011 May 24, 2011 05/24/11
Raymond Chen
The game PowerPoint-Karaoke was invented in 2006 by Zentrale Ingelligenz Agentur. In this game, contestants are called upon to give a PowerPoint presentation based on a slide deck they have never seen. (The German spelling uses a hyphen between the two words. When "translated" into English, the hyphen is often omitted.) At Microsoft, the ...

Microspeak: Hipo

April 28, 2011 Apr 28, 2011 04/28/11
Raymond Chen
A friend of mind was asked out of the blue, "What does hypo mean?" She started to flash back to high school English class and Greek word roots. "I've started to hear it everywhere. Like Everyone in that meeting is a hypo or We need to reach out to hypos." My friend realized that she had mis-heard the question. It was not about the Greek ...

Microspeak: Cadence

March 8, 2011 Mar 8, 2011 03/8/11
Raymond Chen
Originally, the term cadence meant the rate at which a regular event recurs, possibly with variations, but with an overall cycle that repeats. For example, the cadence for team meetings might be "Every Monday, with a longer meeting on the last meeting of each month." Project X is on a six-month release cadence, whereas Project Y ...

Microspeak: Recycling bits or recycling electrons

February 8, 2011 Feb 8, 2011 02/8/11
Raymond Chen
To recycle bits (or recycle electrons) is to take an old piece of email and use it to answer a similar (often identical) question or discussion on a mailing list. This is usually done by simply replying to the thread with the two-word message "Recycling bits" (or "Recycling electrons") and attaching the original email message. An important ...

Microspeak: Leverage

January 26, 2011 Jan 26, 2011 01/26/11
Raymond Chen
At Microsoft, leverage is not a term of physics whereby a force can be magnified by the application of mechanical advantage. It is also not a term of finance whereby the power of a small amount of money can be magnified by the assumption of debt. In fact, at Microsoft, the word leverage isn't even a noun. It is a verb: to leverage, leverages, ...