🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <72160@microsoft.UUCP> kensy@microsoft.UUCP (Ken SYKES) writes:
>In article <1072@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM> press@venice.sedd.trw.com (Barry Press) writes:
>>In article <cgross.673026113@surya> cgross@surya.UWaterloo.CA (Christian Gross) writes:
>>
>>The good news is that, according to the trade rags, Microsoft has developed
>>a DLL that does the job, providing an API to programmers.
>>
>>The bad news is that mortals can't get it.  Or the docs for using
>>windebug.dll.  Or a lot of other stuff.
>What are you talking about?  Read in the trade rags about Microsoft's Open
>Tools strategy.  Read about the recent Open Tools summit.  Microsoft is
>commited to provide the information and support needed to let third-party
>vendors make great Windows development tools.  

I read all that.  I've also spent the past two months trying to get 1)
documentation of the windebug.dll interface codeview uses so that I can
move a profiler I wrote that runs as a windows application from win2 to
win3; 2) the dll and docs for the dde library so I can rip the ad hoc
dde code from the same application.  Having tried 4 or 5 people within
Microsoft with no success, it appears that the Open Tools information
is not going to be publicly available.

Now, admittedly, if I were paying the $500 or $800 a year for Online
(or its successor) and part of the ISV program, then maybe I'd be having
an easier time of it.  I'm not.  I write programs like that on my own,
and distribute them free of charge; it hardly makes sense to pay those
kind of fees on that basis.  Yet I HAVE the program running well under
win2, and have yet to see anything comparable for win3.  The profiler in the
sdk is essentially useless, since you have to program hooks in, and you have
to go in and out of windows to use it.

So my point is that openness is relative.  As far as my experience goes,
Open Tools is at best reserved for those well funded folk in commercial
development environments, not for shareware or freeware authors.

Care to disagree?

-- 
Barry Press                                 Internet: press@venice.sedd.trw.com