Mike,
You are just a victim, like so much of the Engineering staff at Microsoft. Not allowed to innovate. You have to do precisely what you are mandated to do by Hier Bill.
The JVM from MSFT is not the best JVM for wintel, Symantec's is (AND NO AMOUNT OF CHEST BEATING IS GOING TO CHANGE THAT FACT). Besides, the JVM involved no innovation -> You received the source from SUN. Sure, you added a JIT and optimized things a bit. The JIT is really a no brainer (The first one was written at Borland - I believe that engineer is now at MSFT), and getting extra mileage out of the JVM is really just the most basic form of software optimization.. Hardly a reason for applause.
Psychologically speaking, you are quite incapable of agreeing with me. The reason why this is so is quite simple. Pick up any Psych 101 book and look up "Cognitive Dissonance". Read a bit about it. Basically, you will learn that when you have two possible truths to choose from, you will choose the one that makes you feel better about yourself. An example of cognitive dissonance: Harry buys a car. He is told by his friends that his car's interior is ugly. Harry looks inside of his car and wonders, "Is my car interior ugly?" Before he really has a chance to determine the truth of what his friends told him, Harry comes to the conclusion that his friends friends have bad taste. You see, Harry was confronted with a pyschological paradox - either he, in error, spent alot of money to buy something ugly, or his friends have bad taste. Because it is harder for Harry to admit he made a serious mistake than it is to decide that his friends have bad taste, Harry (through Cognitive Dissonance) decides he has clueless friends.
Mike, you have bought the car (MSFT). Many people have tried to tell you that it has an ugly interior. But, you bet your carreer, your self-asteem, your location (Redmond) and many other things on it. You are psychologically incapable of seeing the ugliness of the car. After all, you have to ride in it every day.
If you ever feel like innovating, rather than mugging others' innovations as Hier Bill insists, let me know. I happen to be rather well plugged in down here in the Silicon Valley. Down here, we innovate. Let me tell you, there is no better feeling than twisting the bits on a piece of code that does something that HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE. That, my friend, is a feeling that very few people at MSFT have ever experienced (at least, not on the job).
-Dan |
