Granted I don't work at Microsoft so I don't see their internal code. I have worked a bit with their .NET and older Visual Studio suites, and found that their documentation there was probably some of the best I've ever seen (better than Analog Devices, which I've used as a hardware documentation standard for a while). MSDN is a fantastic resource, and is extremely well organized (or was 10 years ago, I imagine it hasn't changed a ton since then).

And I more meant that they have to stick with technologies that they know work for two reasons: legacy & reliability. If Microsoft changes something within their legacy code, that could cause absolutely massive problems around the globe. If reliable features in their code breaks, same problem.

[Edited to fix redundant sentence].

Internal documentation of functionality/features/whatever and documentation of externalized API's & protocols meant to be consumed by any johnny come lately are two separate beasts. If the QA/validation process that is applied to external documentation was also imposed as a requirement on internal documentation then nothing would get done.

Where did he mention poor code quality? Out of date documentation is all I see mentioned.

He mentioned copy/pasting code and skipping reviews were popular things to do. The first one is definitely a sign of poor code quality, and the second isn't as definite but is surely a practice that makes room for poor code quality.

I'd say that's implicit, if code that doesn't deliver business value (refactoring, documenting, etc.) is wasted, people won't do it.

I don't think code quality and documentation quality are strongly correlated, they are just complementary.

I'd say without documentation any code loses quality.

I'm not talking about giving a manual for every piece of code you write, but any code that will be used by others (specially in big companies) should be well documented.

If good code is not documented, it will probably cause the same amount of trouble for people using it, than a bad piece of code.

People often forget that their code normally ends up outliving them.

People also often forget that a lot of code doesn't survive the week, which is common in an agile setting. Documenting code is something you do when you know it can live for awhile.

Also, if the focus is on maintainability, the person documenting the code shouldn't be the same person who wrote it, who already has biases on what is obvious or not. Rather, it should be someone with access to the author(s) who can ask questions and document what they didn't get right away.

> no docs

I suggest the OP just fire up the MSDN.