[TUHS] DEC and Dave Cutler (was Re: The John Snow's of the UNIX family)

[Clem Cole]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 11:55 AM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ... Cutler excelled in getting V1 of something out the door.  He never
> stayed around for V2 of anything.  He had a tendency to leave
> messes behind him.  A Cutler product reminded me of the intro to "The Peabodys"
> segment of Rocky & Bullwinkle.  A big elaborate procession,
> followed by someone cleaning up the mess with a broom.
>

One of the first times I met him, was during an argument that Fossil
remarked to something like: 'Dave, why do you care.  You'll be doing
something else and these guys have to make it work.'   I've never forgotten
the look DC gave Roger.    He was (is) just not good at listening.  And
that is to me, the best example of his arrogance. He was quick to point out
other's bad ideas; but I don't think he ever looked back and said -- "We'll
that was a bad idea *I made*.  *I (even we) called that one wrong*."

That said, to Dave's credit by the time of Tru64 and he had left for MSFT,
everything at DEC had to be 'perfect' before it would ship. And thus things
were late or never made it out the door.   DC's magic was getting to the
nut of the problem and getting what people cared about implemented quickly
and out for users to try it.  The problem was his scheme, was that he was
never part of the team that fixed it later.    I think I would have had
more respect if he had quickly gotten the product out and then said, 'ok,
we took these short cuts.  Let's fix them'  But as you pointed out, Dave
never seems to see them as short cuts.  He was 'done.'

And when I think about engineers that I really respect, are the ones that
can get the first version out the door with that want matters, then work as
to polish it and make them better.  This means listening to the users and
other developers and really taking input from other people.  i.e. listening.

Clem
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