I just want Microsoft to develop a proper terminal application and not handwave away complaints about performance with "that's a PhD right there". Even if it was a PhD, I'd then expect a PhD to be put to the task, because this is a crucial component of the operating system.
Realistically though, a PhD is the opposite of what you want here. A PhD is almost by definition an inexperienced programmer. It's also someone who is likely to fall in love with their ideas, putting aesthetics or purity above practicality and effectiveness.
I was more responding to the article, which used that specific example as a jumping off point to talk about management structure in software development generally.
I don't use Windows, but I do use Kitty terminal (https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/) and from my interactions with that project and trying to get code ligatures working in my setup I've learned that terminals are really complex, both for technical and legacy/ecosystem reasons so my gut reaction is to support the MS engineers, without having read deeply into that specific issue.
edit: having read some more of the original ticket, I'm more firmly on the MS developers side. I think the other person is both rude and uninformed about what they are talking about, which is a terrible combination.
The ticket discussion brought to light that it is a rendering problem. The other person wrote a terminal renderer that has none of the performance problems and all of the required features. I would say the MS developers have been proven wrong.
Possibly the thread has been edited, but I see the original poster claiming that, and it seems a popular view around here, but I don't actually see the evidence that it actually happened in the thread itself. Are we talking about this thread?
Here is a comment on the code directly from a contributor at Microsoft:
> @AnuthaDev We‘re quite aware about the code and are extremely happy about what was created there. I mean it seriously: It sets a great goal for us to strive for.
Unfortunately the code is intentionally GPLv2 licensed and we‘ll honor this wish entirely. As such no one at Microsoft will ever look at either of the links.
> I‘m the person who‘s tasked with building an equivalent solution and you may subscribe to #10461 to get updates of my progress. Unfortunately our existing project isn’t straight forward to modify the same way we could build a terminal from scratch. A lot of parts of this project must be rewritten and as such it‘ll take a bit for us to catch up. But we will - it’s only a matter of time.
Realistically though, a PhD is the opposite of what you want here. A PhD is almost by definition an inexperienced programmer. It's also someone who is likely to fall in love with their ideas, putting aesthetics or purity above practicality and effectiveness.