[iKlsR]

I remember reading a funny story somewhere recently that back in the day, ms developers intentionally left gaps in the docs or straight up didn't document certain apis etc so they could put them in their books and sell those so if you were working on certain things you'd be forced to buy said books.

[tbyehl]

Back in the day, Microsoft shipped a figurative ton of documentation. I remember my dad coming home with this monstrosity:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/917478/microsofts-biggest-so...

[markus_zhang]

I really wish we had these manuals nowadays. However we are in the mentality of fast iteration so it's probably a bad idea.

[steve1977]

A lot of this is there at learn.microsoft.com

[markus_zhang]

Yeah, but holding a book feels better. Maybe I'm just old style :/ I printed myself a few manuals.

[Spooky23]

That’s nothing! When I was an IBM/Tivoli administrator, they’d ship about 12 linear feet of manuals every 9-12 months.

[ryandrake]

Haha, that's totally believable and in tune with the MicrosoftMentality of those days. I'd love to see the corroborating evidence, though! If I recall correctly, the (also paid) MSDN developer reference documentation was actually pretty OK. The problems you needed Petzold and Richter for were the higher level "why is Windows this way?" topics and "what's the Windows-way to design XYZ?" questions. The actual APIs themselves had good documentation--the problem was knowing you had to use a particular API for a particular problem, which is what we needed the books for.

[sjm-lbm]

There's the rather famous AARD Code (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code), though that is from an era a little before Win32. And, well, it's not a documentation issue for app developers, as much a way to trick OS developers.

[ryandrake]

LOL @ those memos. This was long before all our companies adopted the "Don't say anything in E-mail that could become evidence" training. Their ruthlessness and obsession with destroying everything not-Microsoft was truly unique and special. I can't think of any company here in modern times so focused on not only winning but making sure absolutely everyone else lost. Old-school Microsoft was wild.

[steve1977]

I know there are many legends like this, but I wouldn't be too sure about that.

For example, most of the authors of the old-time classics were not employed by Microsoft when they wrote their books. I think Charles Petzold (Windows Programming) was a freelancer, Jeffrey Richter (MFC) was working a company called Wintellect, David Solomon (Inside Windows NT) had a seminar company (Solsem), I think initially primarily for VMS and Mark Russinovich (Inside Windows 2000) at Winternals Softwre.

[iKlsR]

I've been digging for the article since morning, iirc it was something around directx, will update this comment when and if I can find it. It's not this link but it also touches on some of the stuff on this node https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/25955/did...

[slowmotiony]

I'm convinced this is true for SharePoint development. There were things that I'd find in books that weren't even mentioned anywhere on any microsoft website, let alone documented properly.

[beardedmoose]

I'd argue that's how all modern "cloud" services are, some cool tech that Microsoft purchased and then integrated with duct tape and chewing gum.

SharePoint, Exchange Online, Azure, it's all bound together by a string with APIs that can barely speak the same language.

[alfiedotwtf]

I remember a different reason - APIs were intentionally not documented so Microsoft Products were the only apps that would know how to use them (and gain an advantage over the competition)

[sterlind]

When I joined MS my boss told me that Microsoft apps weren't allowed to use internal APIs, I think as part of the anti-trust settlement. Windows components (e.g. the Settings app) can, but actual apps (e.g. Word) couldn't do anything third-party developers wouldn't be allowed to do. Some APIs are considered public but their documentation is less than useful, admittedly. But with those I don't have access to anything better either. :/

(Disclaimer: I speak for myself, based on my memory of public knowledge.)

[luxuryballs]

heck I would do it just for the perk of having to do less documentation at work