Comment Is it possible? (Score 1) 777
Having worked on old computer systems I wonder whether MS really CAN document their systems. It wouldn't surprise me if much of code just worked, and the people that originally wrote it aren't with the company any more, or don't want to go back to documenting it. Given that it is much harder to reverse engineer functionality than write in the first place, and Windows is the product of 1000s of programmers over 20 years, Windows may simply be undocumentable.
OK - so not all of the system needs to be documented. But exactly which bits of the system effect interoperability? That could require detailed analysis. Network protocols may be much harder to document than GUI because so fwe people know exactly how things work. NO place I have worked has adequate documented there systems. To misquote, it might not be a conspiracy, it might be "incompetancy" (kind of). MS might be acting reasonably and still supply what many would regard as inadequate docs.
That's not to say supplying docs would fill MS with joy. I'm sure they would prefer not to. But it is very difficult to judge the situation from the outside.
OK - so not all of the system needs to be documented. But exactly which bits of the system effect interoperability? That could require detailed analysis. Network protocols may be much harder to document than GUI because so fwe people know exactly how things work. NO place I have worked has adequate documented there systems. To misquote, it might not be a conspiracy, it might be "incompetancy" (kind of). MS might be acting reasonably and still supply what many would regard as inadequate docs.
That's not to say supplying docs would fill MS with joy. I'm sure they would prefer not to. But it is very difficult to judge the situation from the outside.
