Reporter / Yan Hui
Anti-virus software is a special market, and it is also a group of special programmers for anti-virus software. In the user's opinion, they are the protection of the computer, in the view of the virus manufacturer, they are contest. Liu Xu is one of such a population. He has created a Rising anti-virus software era, and was listed as one of Zhongguancun "Procedure Wujie".
Now, Liu Xu has basically separated from software development, focusing on the company's overall operation. Rising Anti-Virus Software 2002 has no code of Liu Xu's code, all series products are completely completed by the Rising R & D department. Maybe you will be interested in how the transformation process developed by Liu Xu to the team is realized in Rising? How does Liu Xu look at this transformation? We also interviewed Liu Xu with concern to these questions.
"Programmer": Thank you for accepting our interview. When you develop anti-virus software, when is the necessity of team development?
Liu Xu: Before Rising established the R & D department, it is basically the development of my own anti-virus software. At that time, I did a few jobs, both general manager, chief engineer, and the underlying programmer, this multi-character working condition continued to have a considerable time. During that time, when I was as general during the day, I went back to the virus at night, mainly for the vicious virus, concentrated on all night. In that case, the body does not have some eating.
Anti-virus software is a huge workload, and the technical content is also very high. Single technology is very wide, no one dares to know everything very well, even if all aspects are powerful, only one thing can be done at the same time. Therefore, it can only concentrate on the single-machine version of the Win9x platform, and there is no monitoring function on the Winnt system, and there is no energy to introduce products such as email monitoring, memory monitoring, disk protection. I also realize that international development trends, based on multi-platform, multi-system enterprise products are also very potential, but they have been worried at the time.
Based on all aspects, I think the team development is a road that Rising must go. If Rising does not go out, you can only do small software, be a small company.
"Programmer": I heard that after the establishment of the R & D department, you will give your own anti-virus software to the team. How do you think?
Liu Xu: By the second half of 1999, the company's business has a big better improvement, so it began to build a research and development department. I really completely out of development. It should be said that it is in the second half of 2000. I also participated in the research and development in the first half of the year. In other words, from the beginning to transition to the transition, we spent more than a year. Now I am only involved in the development direction at the Software Function Design Conference in the R & D department.
Many small companies will encounter such problems in the process of growth, and the company's core technology is in one or two people. When the company has developed to a certain level, the core technicians may not put their own technology, think this is the foundation of themselves. But I think: The development of computer technology is very fast, and what you grasp may soon be eliminated. And I always grasp your own things, even if I set up a development team, the following people want to play their own creativity, which is unfavorable to the company's overall development. Therefore, after the Rising R & D department of Rising, I gave all the source code to the R & D department.
This is easy, but it is difficult to do. Because in this process, it is possible to leak secret technology and even produce your own competitors. So, first trust this team. And I think a company is relatively mature, the brand's role and user loyalty is also very important, technical issues are just one level in the company's operation, not all.
Now let's go back, this shift is more smooth and successful. Because we have sufficient preparation before the transition, it is aware that there may be difficulties in this shift. If there is no mental preparation, once you encounter problems and setbacks, you may give up. Therefore, the leaders must be determined for software companies that are also desirable to develop this to the team. "Programmer": What difficulties have been encountered during the process of turning to the team? How to solve it?
Liu Xu: Because killing virus software is a special product, the continuous emerged virus allows users to have strong continuity, not like other types of software, users can continue to use old versions. . So we use the two-track ways, the development team's work is divided into two lines: on the one hand, continue to maintain, improve and update the old version of the program, on the one hand, rewritten the new engine and version, which is the 2002 version we launched now. This is a soft landing process.
Since I write code, there is no comment in the program, these programs are still difficult to see others. So in the beginning of the stage, I often communicate, communicate, exchange, for more urgent and difficult to solve the virus, I have to go in person, but I don't bury my head in my room, but demonstrate to the R & D department. In the past, everyone just saw my procedure, but now I can see the methods and ideas to solve the problem, so the effect is very good. In short, with adequate preparation, plus some respects, the entire transformation process is still a shocking.
Now, I can proudly say that after almost two years of work, the new version of anti-virus software has already seen my code, but the good anti-virus software is inherited.
"Programmer": It should be said that this shift is also a technical handover between people, and what do you have in terms of employment?
Liu Xu: I think, first, you will be able to find a suitable development with the team, Rising is deep in this regard. Our current development department managed to work in Singapore's famous IT enterprises in Singapore for 3 years before, and there was strong project organizational experience at the time. In the past three years, the manager has successfully taken a R & D team with nearly 50 people, inherits the essence of many viruses, and integrates the wisdom of the collective of the R & D department, so that the software of Rising's software is better. .
In addition, the R & D department attaches importance to talents, and the use of talents. We have a programmer who is an unknown virus analysis. It is a Nanjing Business School graduated last year. Initially he found a job, it was another anti-virus software company. At that time, he used his own software to lock the hard disk, and said "If someone can solve, I will leave." The other party did not decrypt, but he couldn't stand it. His arrogant and let him go. It can be said that the company has lost a good talent. But after Rising, we attach great importance to it, even arrange him to work in the place where he lived, and he is not expected to look forward, and it will be achieved after half a year.
Of course, the core of team development is unity. Intelligence is very important, but if you can't integrate into this team, it is not advisable, and it may even bring a batch of people. Our company has also had such an employee, which is very strong, but the dedication and unity consciousness is very poor, and it will be confused. In order to expel him, the R & D Manager has rejected twice. Because I still want to change him through communication, there is no effect. Although it feels unfortunate, you must do that.
Many excellent people are together, and everyone will collide out sparks in the process of communicating each other, plus certain supplements and improvements, ultimately can form a very creative idea. But it is closed by one person, or each person is each polite, and if it is not integrated with each other, the effect is a lot. So you can say this, personal to the team will produce a quantity. "Programmer": What progress has been achieved compared with you when you have previously a single gun?
Liu Xu: It can be said that the technology level of Rising anti-virus software is higher than I have a big cut, and many of them will be attributed to our current development team.
First of all, the product line is greatly widened. Now we have a single version, a web version, a Unix Series (Sun and IBM Server Series), Linux Series, Mail Server Series, Novell Version, etc., and personal firewall software. The code of the Rising anti-virus version I wrote should be less than 100,000, and now each product has hundreds of thousands, and it is all rewritten. If there is no team development, it is unimaginable. And they also wrote a lot of tools to assist the virus. For example, many viruses are deformed. If hand-decrypted, it takes a lot of time, so some disassembled decryption virus tools have been written to greatly improve productivity.
It is under the strength of the team, we have compacted a lot of difficulties, such as killing dyed sharing conflict documents, it took a few people to spend half a year to track research, and finally engage in the WINDOWS environment. Judgment Sharing Conflict mechanisms and then bypass this safety mechanism to kill viruses. There is also the following support NTFS format below, which is to crack this storage format in the case of Microsoft's non-public technical details, which is the same as the principle of deciphering the Word macro virus. There is also a remote installation, automatic upgrade, distributed unified killing, mobile console, etc. are all crystallization of collective wisdom for a long time, and it is also unimaginable for personal workshop companies.
"Programmer": You are now responsible for the company's overall operation, you can say that it has been successfully transformed from development to management, what do you think, which is more hard?
Liu Xu: I feel very tired to do development and do management. For young people, there may be more fun during development. However, I think that management and development have a certain similarity, such as the program solves a problem to pass different ways, and management is also possible to pass different methods, especially when making programs.
"Programmer": as a senior anti-virus software expert, please talk about the development trend of future anti-virus software technology?
Liu Xu: I think there are several aspects that may be the development trend of anti-virus software technology and the challenge of challenge, and we are also conducting certain research and development work.
1. How to prevent viruses in the broadband network. With the rapid development of broadband, how to identify and kill the network virus as soon as possible is a direction. Whether the current technology can adapt to the future development, this is a new topic. In this regard, we are also studying with Harbin Institute of Technology.
2, virus killing technology on mobile devices. For example, mobile phone PDA, digital home appliances. These smart devices are likely to be another hotbed for the virus.
3. How to deal with the combination of viruses and hacker programs, however, how to combine anti-virus and system security, which is also a topic that needs to be drilled.
4, anti-virus software cross-domain technology development, such as anti-virus technology can not learn from medical and human immune systems, these aspects of development are very huge, need to explore.
"Programmer": Our magazine has many readers who are interested in the field of anti-virus software. I hope to engage in anti-virus software research and development. What advice do you have?
Liu Xu: For those who are interested in anti-virus software, you can see some technical books that are now anti-virus. The virus killing needs to have a good understanding of the underlying of the system, by analyzing the virus itself, and processes some viruses, study the mechanism of viruses, and so on. With the spread of network viruses, research on network underlying technology, especially underlying communication protocols is also aware of anti-virus software developers, which is important for studying the network communication mechanism of viruses, feedback information. In fact, the best way is to study in work, growing under pressure. After the interview, Liu Xu, who was reported in the "Knowledge Hero" book, is "This is not a human life", "very bitter, bitter. In 1997, nearly 30 days, I only sleep 2 every day. Hours, until July, my face is green. In the Academy of Sciences, I used to get 50 days in the morning, I get 6 o'clock in the morning, sleep until 10 pm, and then dried to 6 o'clock in the next day. More than 60,000 lines of C language, and all all warped, suffering. "Now Liu Xu should have no such sigh. Liu Xu's technical level is unquestionable. He taught five years of university computer courses, main talks C language and compilation principle. It is this kind of deep skill in the underlying, so that he only spends a month, from the WINDOWS programming, the underlying driver (viral real-time monitoring program) is written under WINDOWS. Even if so, he still feels too weak to be a person's power, and even uninstalling in the installer made at the time. Liu Xu's general manager office is very dark, and the open lights are scattered with the yellow light of chrysanthemum. Liu Xu smoked the smoking. He also had a fierce, he took five cigarettes in the interview. I don't know if he is doing these habits.
