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The developers at the Wine project have mentioned multiple times in various places how sketchy and inaccurate MSDN is. Maybe MS has tried to clean that up rece

The developers at the Wine project have mentioned multiple times in various places how sketchy and inaccurate MSDN is. Maybe MS has tried to clean that up recently, but it has a track record of inaccuracy, at best. I wouldn't be surprised if the Wine developers were the ones submitting the corrections to the MSDN, anyway.

coldpie 10y ago
Sure, it'd be cool if everything was perfect. Then we wouldn't need to write all these tests $ cat src/wine/*/*/tests/*.c | wc -l 1085766 But we don't live in that world and it's far more interesting to compare like with like. When you take into account its scope, in terms of completeness and usefulness, MSDN is head and shoulders above every other API doc I can think of except maybe Java, which is also excellent. Certainly better than Apple, and don't even get me started on most open source APIs.
kyberias 10y ago
Yes, MSDN documentation may be inaccurate from the perspective of people trying to REPLICATE THE ACTUAL IMPLEMENTATION of the APIs! That's not the purpose of MSDN documentation though.
- greenhouse_gas 10y ago
  That's my point. I want that you publish what your API actually does. I've written programs which MSDN said wouldn't work. Clearly a bug in MSDN. Did MS not know? Or is it to trip up wine? Either way, its clear vendor lockin
  - kyberias 10y ago
    You may not understand something important about Windows API. Let me explain. There's the documented, public functionality that Windows implements and wants all the applications to adhere to. This should be documented and it is. Then there's the functionality that Microsoft had to implement behind the scenes because some important application used it in an incorrect way or it worked by accident. They didn't want that application to break with a new release of Windows. Now Microsoft doesn't want new applications to use this, so they don't document it. I think that is absolutely correct. MSDN API documentation is meant for people that write applications the way Microsoft wants the applications written. Wine isn't an application. They want to emulate what Windows does. The API documentation is not for that purpose and it shouldn't be. That being said, there are APIs in Windows that are secret and undocumented. Those should not be used by applications. Windows isn't open source. Accept it.

coldpie 10y ago

Sure, it'd be cool if everything was perfect. Then we wouldn't need to write all these tests $ cat src/wine/*/*/tests/*.c | wc -l 1085766 But we don't live in that world and it's far more interesting to compare like with like. When you take into account its scope, in terms of completeness and usefulness, MSDN is head and shoulders above every other API doc I can think of except maybe Java, which is also excellent. Certainly better than Apple, and don't even get me started on most open source APIs.

kyberias 10y ago

Yes, MSDN documentation may be inaccurate from the perspective of people trying to REPLICATE THE ACTUAL IMPLEMENTATION of the APIs! That's not the purpose of MSDN documentation though.

greenhouse_gas 10y ago
That's my point. I want that you publish what your API actually does. I've written programs which MSDN said wouldn't work. Clearly a bug in MSDN. Did MS not know? Or is it to trip up wine? Either way, its clear vendor lockin
- kyberias 10y ago
  You may not understand something important about Windows API. Let me explain. There's the documented, public functionality that Windows implements and wants all the applications to adhere to. This should be documented and it is. Then there's the functionality that Microsoft had to implement behind the scenes because some important application used it in an incorrect way or it worked by accident. They didn't want that application to break with a new release of Windows. Now Microsoft doesn't want new applications to use this, so they don't document it. I think that is absolutely correct. MSDN API documentation is meant for people that write applications the way Microsoft wants the applications written. Wine isn't an application. They want to emulate what Windows does. The API documentation is not for that purpose and it shouldn't be. That being said, there are APIs in Windows that are secret and undocumented. Those should not be used by applications. Windows isn't open source. Accept it.