How Microsoft Lost the API War

Everyone and their friends seem to be linking to the following article, and I thought I shouldn’t but now I read it and I can’t make myself not link to it. This is really good. For one, he also says, like several people already did to me, that ASP.NET is a really nice programming language. But the more interesting parts are the argument that Microsoft is loosing its grip on software developers.

Check this: _A lot of the bets Microsoft made are the wrong ones. For example, WinFS, advertised as a way to make searching work by making the file system be a relational database, ignores the fact that the real way to make searching work is by making searching work. Don’t make me type metadata for all my files that I can search using a query language. Just do me a favor and search the damned hard drive, quickly, for the string I typed, using full-text indexes and other technologies that were boring in 1973._

And for the power of the web: _So the Web user interface is about 80% there, and even without new web browsers we can probably get 95% there. This is Good Enough for most people and it’s certainly good enough for developers, who have voted to develop almost every significant new application as a web application.

Which means, suddenly, Microsoft’s API doesn’t matter so much. Web applications don’t require Windows._

It’s a long article but worth the read. Check it out: Joel on Software — How Microsoft Lost the API War

Update : Great discussion going on over at Jeremy’s Ensight.org. Check it out!