After being on the inside, I am convinced this is (part of) the reason why Microsoft seems so disconnected from the rest of the industry: no one here reads anyone else's code.
Sure, you might look at other code in your (probably enormous) project. And if you can swing it, you might be able to look at another group's code. But in general you can't go look at, say, random third party open-sourced code similar to what you're working on, or even better, random code that has nothing to do with what you're working on. (The license, viral or not, usually has no effect on the prohibition.)
There are aspects of serendipity, and of feeling recharged by feeling connected to the greater constellation of developers and projects in the world, and those aspects are stripped away here. I wonder if the Microsoft "culture" attracts people who don't care about reading others' code, or if it creates those kinds of people.
Wow, I can't imagine working like that. At my workplace, when working out problems, I almost always go to others' code first to see how they solved similar (or identical) problems.
Sure, you might look at other code in your (probably enormous) project. And if you can swing it, you might be able to look at another group's code. But in general you can't go look at, say, random third party open-sourced code similar to what you're working on, or even better, random code that has nothing to do with what you're working on. (The license, viral or not, usually has no effect on the prohibition.)
There are aspects of serendipity, and of feeling recharged by feeling connected to the greater constellation of developers and projects in the world, and those aspects are stripped away here. I wonder if the Microsoft "culture" attracts people who don't care about reading others' code, or if it creates those kinds of people.