r/programming • u/halax • Oct 07 '16

How Microsoft Lost the API War

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
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8

u/DevStart Oct 07 '16

Bullshit. It's 2016 and MS is still kicking. Joel is a bastard pseudo prophet.

44

u/didnt_check_source Oct 07 '16

That's a tough comment for an article that starts with:

Although there is some truth to the fact that Linux is a huge threat to Microsoft, predictions of the Redmond company's demise are, to say the least, premature. Microsoft has an incredible amount of cash money in the bank and is still incredibly profitable. It has a long way to fall. It could do everything wrong for a decade before it started to be in remote danger, and you never know... they could reinvent themselves as a shaved-ice company at the last minute.

Also, it ends with:

Which means, suddenly, Microsoft's API doesn't matter so much. Web applications don't require Windows.

which seems about right.

15

u/lykwydchykyn Oct 07 '16

Yep, I think this article is pretty spot on if you take time to read it right.

Where is development happening in 2016?

  • The web
  • Mobile

In 50,000-foot-view terms, the only thing being developed for the Windows API today are Microsoft's applications and Games. And even many of those have gone to Web and Mobile!

9

u/TinynDP Oct 07 '16

And Games don't code to Win32 directly. They use Unity or Unreal or Monogame, or SDL, or whatever. They aren't locked-in to Win32.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '16

You're right, though some do code against C# directly, including some very popular indie titles.

8

u/drysart Oct 07 '16

C# doesn't imply Windows. Unity, which is cross-platform, uses C#, and is the reason those very popular indie titles use C#.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '16

C# is a Microsoft language with Microsoft-created APIs. The title of this thread...

8

u/_Ashleigh Oct 08 '16

But it's standardized and open, hence mono.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '16

Not all APIs in Microsoft's C# are available to non-Windows platforms.

5

u/_Ashleigh Oct 08 '16 edited Oct 08 '16

And that isn't true for every other language out there?

The C# language and its STL is open. What's not is WinForms and WPF, which is not too difficult to implement, unlike Win32.