Ever thought you'd committed an elegant bit of code, only to find that somebody else decided to drop it because "that's the way we've always done things"? If so, you aren't alone. It happens to Microsoft engineers too.
Retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer regaled us with tales of porting the Start Menu from Windows 95 to NT earlier in July, but it appears more than 30 years ago, somebody took a look at his solution and thought "nah..."
Plummer worked on elements of the Windows experience, such as the Task Manager, and had a hand in porting the Start Menu from Windows 95 to Windows NT. While he gave a nod to the Windows 95 design team for the iconic interface element, he explained how he'd worked out a way of avoiding a library of localized bitmaps by figuring out how to display sideways text.
Or so he thought.
In an email to The Register, Plummer told us: "Long story short, in the production builds, I've learned they went with bitmaps rather than the programmatic version.
"My guess is that's the way the art team had always delivered them ... and so it was just easier, but I don't have any real idea. I stay away from source code leaks so don't want to investigate the technicals!"
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Plummer talked to the shell's main developer, who confirmed the story. He said: "I wrote the programmatic version in '94 and we ran it internally, but it appears the setup/design team made the change after the code was written, and didn't use it. It came as news to me as well!"
It seems it was only the code that got ditched from the shipping version. The rest of Plummer's recollections around the launch were accurate.
The shock of discovering that your work was unceremoniously ditched years after the event is something that will be all too familiar to engineers and designers of a certain vintage. More than once, we've examined a product and wondered what happened to our contribution. However, in the case of this writer, the removal of code was more likely due to it being terrible than anything else.
Either way, the Task Manager was frequently a lifesaver when Windows misbehaved, so we'll cut Plummer some slack on this one.
Have you ever done something that you thought was clever but later discovered your contribution ended up on the cutting room floor? Share your tale in the comments below. ®