Joel Spolsky on Microsoft API changes
Turn off your phones, shut down instant messengers, send the kids to the neighbors as Joel Spolsky has a new article out. How Microsoft Lost the API War is an insider’s look at Microsoft current API development, with the war going on between backward-compatibility camp and new off-the-shelf technologies camp. In the article Joel, a former Microsoft employee and currently an entrepreneur, envisions the fall of the Windows platform as application development environment. Win32 did not get killed by Linux, or MacOS or Sun desktop systems (which have by far worse record of keeping the applications backward-compatible). Win32 will be killed by Microsoft, constantly inventing and re-organizing its APIs. From Win32 to COM to COM+ to .NET to WinFX the software developers are finding it more and more difficult to develop an app that actually runs on Windows, and that, as Joel points out, will lead to growth in Web apps and software companies running away from Windows development platform.