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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cheryl williamson who wrote (8299)	6/4/1998 9:32:00 PM
From: Alan Buckley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

[Why would an OS vendor keep the information secret, mozek??? What possible purpose would it serve, other than to enhance its place in the application market.] When underlying APIs are half-baked or will be changing in the near future, it is perfectly reasonable to postpone documenting them. The desire is to avoid creating additional legacy baggage, not to hide some secret advantage. There is a significant time cost to developers and others to document interfaces. Once documented there is an implied obligation to provide technical support, backward compatibility and/or migration paths for many years. All the legacy support is a prime cause of the "bloatware" many complain about. Clearly, documenting every single routine is not feasible. There must be a balance. MSFT publishes thousands of APIs quarterly in their Developer Network CDs, which also includes their Product Support information database and Windows documentation of every description. They deliver a very current and complete package to Windows developers, IMO. Do their competitors deliver as much?