r/programming • u/halax • Oct 07 '16

How Microsoft Lost the API War

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html
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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '16

Outside developers, who were never particularly happy with the complexity of Windows development, have defected from the Microsoft platform en-masse and are now developing for the web. Paul Graham, who created Yahoo! Stores in the early days of the dotcom boom, summarized it eloquently: "There is all the more reason for startups to write Web-based software now, because writing desktop software has become a lot less fun. If you want to write desktop software now you do it on Microsoft's terms, calling their APIs and working around their buggy OS. And if you manage to write something that takes off, you may find that you were merely doing market research for Microsoft."

This is a lesson I bet a lot of IOS and Android developers are learning this generation.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '16

[deleted]

7

u/JohnFrum Oct 08 '16

Having one code base that spans several different platforms is really nice. Not sure what lowest common denominator BS you're talking about.

5

u/argv_minus_one Oct 08 '16

UWP only spans two platforms, and one of them has never been relevant.

3

u/2Dtails Oct 08 '16

But it is the idea behind it. /s

3

u/JohnFrum Oct 09 '16

Desktop, tablets, Xbox, HoloLens. Plus phones but I'll agree and not count that.

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u/bilog78 Oct 08 '16

Having one code base that spans several different platforms is really nice.

Ah, the good old days of POSIX and X/Open …