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The WinAPI is horribly designed. The choice of language has nothing to do with it. A plain C API can be a joy to work with (e.g. pthreads, or any POSIX API). Th

The WinAPI is horribly designed. The choice of language has nothing to do with it. A plain C API can be a joy to work with (e.g. pthreads, or any POSIX API). There is just no excuse for the myriad of WinAPI functions that take 13 parameters in random order, most of which need to be set to 0, -1 or NULL to get it to work.

ajuc 16y ago
The excuse is backward compatibility, and it is also why linux binaries from 3 years ago doesn't work on new linux, and win32 binaries does (or at least did before vista age). PS I prefer linux way (clean the api, no matter old binaries), but that's because I'm programmer, as a user I would love to just download old binary from net and have it work without worrying about dependencies.
- jussij 16y ago
  I was amazed to find that a version of the Zeus editor dating back to 1995 still runs fine on Windows 7 and that software is not even Win32. It's written in Win16. And here is the link to prove it: http://www.zeusedit.com/z300/zeus-v103.zip http://www.zeusedit.com/z300/zeus-v103.zip
  - ajuc 16y ago
    My last windows was xp, bu I've heard win7 was supposed to have virtual machine with winXP to run older program. If so, this is cheating :)
    - ComputerGuru 16y ago
      Not really. You need to separately install the XP Virtual Machine software on Windows 7. He means it actually runs "out of the box." (Windows 7's XP emulation mode is nothing like the super cool Rosetta on OS X)
- angstrom 16y ago
  I worked on a popular medical imaging application that was released with Win95 support and still working with Vista/Win7. That's some impressive longevity. Mind you there were adjustments along the way to support newer DirectX libraries etc. but the rest of the application was able to compile fine.
  - ajuc 16y ago
    To compile fine is one level, the other is to run fine without recompiling - it's easy to break binary compatibility - http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Binary_Compatibility_Issues_With_C++ http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Binary_Compatibility_Issues...

ajuc 16y ago

The excuse is backward compatibility, and it is also why linux binaries from 3 years ago doesn't work on new linux, and win32 binaries does (or at least did before vista age). PS I prefer linux way (clean the api, no matter old binaries), but that's because I'm programmer, as a user I would love to just download old binary from net and have it work without worrying about dependencies.

jussij 16y ago
I was amazed to find that a version of the Zeus editor dating back to 1995 still runs fine on Windows 7 and that software is not even Win32. It's written in Win16. And here is the link to prove it: http://www.zeusedit.com/z300/zeus-v103.zip http://www.zeusedit.com/z300/zeus-v103.zip
- ajuc 16y ago
  My last windows was xp, bu I've heard win7 was supposed to have virtual machine with winXP to run older program. If so, this is cheating :)
  - ComputerGuru 16y ago
    Not really. You need to separately install the XP Virtual Machine software on Windows 7. He means it actually runs "out of the box." (Windows 7's XP emulation mode is nothing like the super cool Rosetta on OS X)
angstrom 16y ago
I worked on a popular medical imaging application that was released with Win95 support and still working with Vista/Win7. That's some impressive longevity. Mind you there were adjustments along the way to support newer DirectX libraries etc. but the rest of the application was able to compile fine.
- ajuc 16y ago
  To compile fine is one level, the other is to run fine without recompiling - it's easy to break binary compatibility - http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Binary_Compatibility_Issues_With_C++ http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Binary_Compatibility_Issues...