Netscape Documentary

Tape 58 Tara Hernandez cont

Oh yeah People care lot Urn..

People care lot about the company We there was an effort for about year to try and bring

Netscape into more conventional you know software development environment as far as our

corporate policies and our customer base and yadda yadda yadda and it doesnt work Not with

the group of people that we have the development At

doing least not in client...things could be

different in server probably are But the only way thaNetscape really works well
really is is

kind of pirate you know they got the Jolly Roger going and...theyre doing something really

innovative and different and theyre sort of bucking whatever the industry trend is far as
as

what...accepted corporate environments and behaviors and just even the way that we.. do

development But that

way works for us Theres too has
many people that...being at Netscape

really changed the way they viewed application what cutting

development as far as
edge really

means and how much fun you can have them And
getting if we lose that sense of fun...and

our sense of wonder...it you know...all the amazing things that weve been able to do and that

well still be able to do Netscape will fail

fr
Whats the sense of wonder for you

i.aQ3 \1.OL Well it at UC Santa Cruz there was this there was...a series of machines most most of

them were designated for classwork there was one machine it was an open access machine

and any student could get an account on it and it was UCSCB And uh apparently it was it was

kind of famous for while it was one of the first major urn what they refer to as geek

community And was account Velvet and what was really amazing to me coming into this

was people would uh people would be online and talking to each other...over the network and

someone would say food run and

everyone would see that
message posted and wed all show up

at Lyons and
at midnight or something um and there was just real distinct community of

people who were into this sort of thing and it went on from there mean there were geek houses

established that were and

networked was
fully this
really amazing thing at the timee and
Page

P4
\\
Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tara Hernandez cont

then when same we went and we took

got...with that
group of people into the industry that

same sort of verence uh into the workforce and and found other people that were

aybe little older bu had the same noun everence...this was fun This was bl

when got to Netscape one of my first jobs was to write an inst er for
program people

to install the Windows version of the product ..of the first Navigator And it Im working on

this thing And Im coding away and Im fixing dialogues and Im you know playing with the

different file types and all this other stuff you do when youre writing that type of program and

.. came over and he goes hows it

goin Im like Im having good time you know Lll have

it done in little bit he goes good Theres only going to be about 80 million people lookin at

it and it was just like ah Youre kidding You know and that was my first real sense of the

of what it was that we were doing

scope the fact that this little
program which was the first

thing that you saw for the Windows version of the product the very first thing you saw was the

install And millions of people were be looking And

going to at it it was on the one hand it

was absolutely terrifying because oh my god if have bug in here everyone and their

mothers going to see it and also because the first impression of product often comes from the

install And and then after while it was like oh what the hell You know ..80 million

people...its just number its too big for me to comprehend Ill just code it And sent it

out and it came back with lots of bugs and but it was it was kind of fun thing and we put

some funny things in the in the real early versions that were most people didnt catch

shouldnt have put them in it

thankfully probably but it was just there were you know

20 of us in engineering and we were working on this that so

little product many people were

looking at that we couldnt even comprehend and and heres Microsoft

up there going oh no

ones going to be using the World Wide Web you know Microsoft Network is the way to
go
and were like whatever You know and but went with Microsoft
nobody Network they

killed it and everybodys on the Web and everybody you know most of the people who were

there ins use my little installer

program and it
just feels neat you know That that have

Page
 Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tara Hernandez cont

of Tara around on various

little piece is out there floating hard drives and it makes me want

to keep going and and keep adding to that

When did engineers get to be such funny people

rJ Well you know what think all of the original work was done for the government
computer

right The government isnt funny irreverent people either unless youre talking about you

know really high-level politicians urn software now is its accessible by anybody you know

anybody can go out and just about anybody can go out and get and buy software
computer

and and have some fun with it And you know one of the biggest areas of computer

development is games or educational software its for everybody now And because its for

everybody we want to its its another form of entertainment in in some sense but beyond

that its more its educational

encompassing its entertainment its work its its lifestyle

And think for the us engineers

for that are in the industry now its lifestyle This is how we

live we eat breathe live die our code and go out the door and and
.. see our products feel

very personally attached to to in lot of dont think

it
ways that was true 20 or 30 years ago

at least not globally But now you know given the the competition .. and just the way the

market you have to have love for what

is going you do otherwise its too depressing to get up

in the morning
c5

sA
Well have its probably not the best do but and ignore
way to it tend to try that as much as

started
possible if
thinking about stuff like that keep me awake at nights You know

the
way view it and think lot of and Im one of the younger ones right Im still in

the mid-20s not even upper yet its not the sort of industry where you worry about keeping

your job because you expect to have it for 20 years Right and so Jim Barksdale
figure

knows what hes doing and hell keep us going

my job is to deliver on what he needs us to

deliver on fl and if do my job then hell be able to do his fl but if it doesnt work out that

way well there are lot of other companies out them too Like said cant think of any that

Page 4U7 I92i

 Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tara Hernartdez cont

are sound as interesting as Netscape but Im sure Ill find something at some point...if it comes

to that

CUT

You have to watch out for her shell take the food out of your mouth if youre not paying

attention

What have been the moments that stand out from the last few weeks

30 think the uh the one most clearly remember from way back was uh no one could think of

schedule uh and because was much work around what team would
it so so of the centered my

be doing .. Michael Toy said Tara you .. think of one And uh said all right here are the

dates and the target

is all three platforms building and running by March 1st And at
thinking

the time as stood up there and said that well make

that my god never it really want to make

this but dont know how were going to do it And uh and as were coming to
up it knowing

that the whole team pulled together and we figured it

out and weve got we made that
goal

that was you know the one goal that we hardly even pretended to want to achieve you know

because of the disappointment of of not fulfilling it and we made it

anyway Um lots of little

victories that we had along the way Brian was able to strip out Java and prove that we could do

it and still have running product that was uh that was good like milestone and
encouraging

think the thing that scared everybody was security and how long that took mean it
really was

done at the last minute for all intensive purposes and even now were were you know we

have two days and were

left still trying to think all right did we get everything Uh but think

we did And historically we havent been the best at at meeting our engineering schedules its
.--

been one of those things we kind about But we made

that of joke this one And it was probably

the most important one for us to make Uh because of all the publicity surrounding it and and

Page
\3
Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tara Hernandez cont

because of what were trying to accomplish by doing this So it was it was neat And it felt

really good to do that

Describe those few moments of trying to meet the no bug deadline

2-2--

was good and bad parts to that .. the good part was that it was Jeff Weinstein and hes

really good engineer and knew hed be able to come up with The bad was
something thing

that he was the only who was doing it you know and was that sort of he hit
it if gets by

bus walking the street were of screwed

across kind sort of scenario and uh many tense

moments waiting for him to check in You know it wasnt like the Java which was this
pull

other huge monolithic thing there were six on that more actually
people working but yeah

waiting for Jeff to come in was pretty tense and that that Friday the 13th deadline that we did

not make that was very discouraging we didnt even come close to making it. .in
my

opinion we had over hundred bugs um we were supposed to be you know around ten We

had...collectively hit think our first wall that week as far as peoples energy levels and their

morale and their you know motivation and it was just we couldnt sit back and look at it and

think yeah were were still OK you know were gonna make it and it
required real

concerted effort an to get back on track and to really you know re-prioritize and identify all

the problem areas and get those addressed and .. it was pretty for about five
scary days...between

that Thursday and the following Wednesday and that next week we down
finally got the bug list

to like you know four that we really cared about and that thats when we knew wed done it

That we had made it finally after all of the just heartache...the prior week There was

week where my team probably 80 or 90 hours for

collectively. .averaged these last-minute

dumps that had to get in you kiWwe didnt have time normally .. when we carpool major

code change in it takes three day4o restabilize the tree and we didnt have three days we had

six hours right so doin things hours of the 24/7 fl

all
night cycle and that was kind of crazy

never want to do that again ij1ut theres just such an incredible intense amount of

Page

4.o7
 ij .-

Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tara Hernandez cont

satisfaction now that were coming on to Tuesday and wer going to have something that

people are going to be really interested to look at

Ve1l for me mean you wont survive unless you come up withaway to blow off steam fl
for me paint my house ..go room by room and by the end of the summer itll probably be

completely different on the inside and take decent vacations now didnt used

couple of years when was working at Borland the first or so at Netscape Ididnt take
year

vacations gt now go to Hawaii for two weeks went to Paris for week for

Thanksgiving get away you have to do something for

yourself otherwise_mentally

Touil just fall

apar Lloyd goes to Bali every Christmas or something like that he takes

his family and they go someplace exotic mean some people

you have to there are plenty

of people how
that are are fairly even-keela in they go about it and just the way that they

are and theyre able to do to balance the quality and quantity of work that they do with having

life and then theres me...Im either working or Im not working dont dont balance

them out very well just have to make sure that the amount of working versus non-working is

is healthy enough so uh used to work lot of weekends dont do that anymore cant

Ill work late Ill work hours between

nights crazy Monday and Friday but dont work

Saturday and Sunday That was sort of my my compromise And most of my team is like

that .. people will work in such way that some people will come in at like in the and
morning

leave by you know so that they actually get whole lot of work done in the five or six hours

before most people get in and then they spend you know they have their evenings Its matter

of adjustment But you have to figure something out otherwise you just go nuts and remember

there was time at Netscape when something 20% was

like it
way back in the early days when

everybody was working 100 hour weeks or something like that it was 20% of the people

working there were on some form of medication or something heard that statistic floating

around the hallways and its like wow you know for stress Thats thats crazy thats but

Jim Barksdale know we cant do that

is you you cant thats bad and hes made real

Page

Ai 19a
 .2
Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tan Hernandez cortt

concerted effort to and keep things more

try sane but its hard cause at the one time you have

you know you have to take care of yourself the other other on the other hand you have this

commitment to your company and you have these deadlines that we that and we have
get set

to try and make thems and sometimes the deadlines are movable and sometimes theyre not

like this one We had to get it out by Tuesday So but once its out think whole team and
my

are going to disappear for couple weeks and go someplace else 70 2-C

Where does motorcycle riding fit into this

33
\1-\ My mother would say would say it was yeah riding bike is not the safest in the
thing

world but Im Im not the sort of person that

goes you know 90 miles an hour down Skyline

you know tight twisty turnsS its neat stress relief you get very focused when you ride

you have to
pay very close attention to what youre doing and to
your environment

because otherwise someones going to run into you One of the most important things they told

us in our my first training class was motorcycle is invisible Ride it that

way Right so

whats nice about it especially when ride to work cm is get its almost like sort of this Zen

state where youre youre just completely focused on riding and it

actually is very

relaxing so by the time get to work...Im loose Im awake very awake and Im ready to
go
and its its just fun with that bike Its
especially just blast Big honkin red thing

...who for application for Roskinland

developers people like
Weinstein its not true for the

release engineers our job defined

is by huge distractions think the single most

important quality of release engineer is the ability to multitask on really gross level Not two

or three but like five six ten different things simultaneously going on that
you have to you

know at least have vague awareness of and be able to switch to it if

quickly

necessary ...Because...of what it is that we do were track of everything

keeping for everybody

So that the other engineers focus

can Thats our job Make it so that the engineers can work

effectively So everything that we do...we try to do is towards that end Our job is to ship the

Page7
Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tan Hernandez cont

product which means we have to pull all the pieces together we have to where the
identify

problem areas are we have to develop tools or design tools to fulfill this particular need

and all of this is going on simultaneously our development our development support our

maintenance of of the you know the continuous build mean everything its its
systems

has to be running we dont have

smoothly really the ability to get that focused which is

something that some of newer

my engineers complain about bitterly on regular basis but they

learn.fl and after while it becomes second nature and Chris was before Chris Yeh

became the team lead on my teamS he was on he was release engineer working on

a...started out on small subset of stuff and we him

kept throwing more things at because hes

really good and we bitch and moan all the time about it but now its second nature and

hes probably one of the best engineers we have at the far

company as as his ability to keep

things going And its And it 23

it real important trick its trick to figure how to do that
-Ca

love Jim Hes great guy real sharp guy And hes one of those people that tends to keep

pretty even keel who never loses his temper thats rare at at least with the client
Netscape

engineers were-tend tobe fairly hot-tenjperedbu.ncL and he always wants to think

things through ahead of time and he always wants to make sure we take the time to do that you

know most of us are willing to just kind of well lets try this and off hes
go running

been the one all along whos been sort of the he he calls it
being the
naysayer or the

pessimist the the group pessimist but in reality hes the one whos like OK reality check

time at you know what what are we going to run into what what possible problems can we

think of that we could therefore plan against js and hes really good that way And hes really

good at making sure that people keep focused on the right things um especially for his team

Java is such hard component to support its fairly complicated theres lots and lots of little

pieces um. .and it has to be theres parts of that are native to the individual
it
platforms there

are pasts that are shared um and all those pieces have to work together and its the Java team

has taken heat over the past year and half um just cause its its hard job and every once in

PageS
 Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tara Hernandez cont

while they flail and like

everybody else and hes done amazing things think as far as

keeping his team together and focused and really of respect

garnering lot for what theyve

been able to accomplish urn they they did everything very thoroughly And uh you know they

covered their covered their bases at all at all times and it was such neat thing to watch

because you know on the other side we had lot of the front end teams were running around

going aah And uh kind of being and made

haphazard about it it it harder as they went forward

to try and track OK what did we just do you know keeping track of that and and here the Java

team had this

huge project that took them about
it six days of of actual um you know

couple of days of prep and then six solid days of work and when they were done they were

done....It was great for us because was not very

it
painful to integrate But uh hes been great in

the
meetings and and hell probably tell
you oo

52l3O5
Lit hes hes definitelyO like
principal or architect-level engineer someone who can

think about at
things very high level and very low level and really understand...the ins and

outs of of or an
component application you definitely want lots of Jims around to keep

things on track...one Jim and maybe five mes as far as like type of personality and youll get

lot of work done

o3

My team...we probably at this point come the closest mean of the

lot
original engineers um
will have quite bit of knowledge but as far as all of the different
components and how they

interact at that point its my teams job to keep track of that because theres just too many

pieces for most engineers want

to to keep track of they dont want to know all that stuff and

they shouldnt have to They need to be able to focus on their

component Andd so as far as

not necessarily as from functional perspective we dont necessarily know but from how the

pieces fit together how they build and how how

they they become shipping product

thats my teams job now we sort of own that whole area And it can be kind of daunting its

really big But not as big as it used to be

Page9
Netscape Documentary
Tape 58 Tara Hernandez cont

\1 1ob

Yeah...I dont think anybodys got any idea how thats going to work of have to wait
yet...kind

and see what happens and sort of adapt as it as it comes in

Tone

Page 10