3 ms·

Ask HN: Why Microsoft reinvents Help file formats many times?

2 points by fomine3 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinHelp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Compiled_HTML_Help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Help_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Assistance_Markup_Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Help_Viewer Finally their updated product (like Explorer) just open website or even Bing search result.

Someone 5y ago
The first two pre-date the time one could assume disks and memory were large enough (help2 is from 2001; that’s Windows XP era; it required 1,5GB _disk_ space and 64 MB RAM) and people had an always-on internet connection, so data shipped on CD (later DVD; compiled help evening floppy disk, I think) and had to be relatively small. The third has special features for CLI programs, and is much more recent, so I can see why they didn’t want to build on earlier work. The fourth is the modern way. It makes fixing help easier (no updates to send out), and effectively doesn’t have space restrictions.
- fomine3 5y ago
  I wonder isn't it possible to expand existing .hlp format, like Microsoft always do (like .doc).
  - Someone 5y ago
    Always? .docx is a complete departure from .doc (keeping all its weird flags to enable more or less reliable document conversion) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML) As to .hlp, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinHelp#End_of_support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinHelp#End_of_support says “Ted Dworkin (Partner Director of WinHelp Experience) stated, "WinHelp does not meet the code standards established for Vista. These standards include security, reliability, and performance." He went on to say that WinHelp is designed in such a way that, "...we would have to rewrite it from the ground up to meet the Vista code standards. And that approach doesn't make sense given that we have two other Help systems in Vista”.

3 ms·

Ask HN: Why Microsoft reinvents Help file formats many times?

2 points by fomine3 5y ago

Someone 5y ago
The first two pre-date the time one could assume disks and memory were large enough (help2 is from 2001; that’s Windows XP era; it required 1,5GB _disk_ space and 64 MB RAM) and people had an always-on internet connection, so data shipped on CD (later DVD; compiled help evening floppy disk, I think) and had to be relatively small. The third has special features for CLI programs, and is much more recent, so I can see why they didn’t want to build on earlier work. The fourth is the modern way. It makes fixing help easier (no updates to send out), and effectively doesn’t have space restrictions.
- fomine3 5y ago
  I wonder isn't it possible to expand existing .hlp format, like Microsoft always do (like .doc).
  - Someone 5y ago
    Always? .docx is a complete departure from .doc (keeping all its weird flags to enable more or less reliable document conversion) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML) As to .hlp, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinHelp#End_of_support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinHelp#End_of_support says “Ted Dworkin (Partner Director of WinHelp Experience) stated, "WinHelp does not meet the code standards established for Vista. These standards include security, reliability, and performance." He went on to say that WinHelp is designed in such a way that, "...we would have to rewrite it from the ground up to meet the Vista code standards. And that approach doesn't make sense given that we have two other Help systems in Vista”.