The WineAPI wiki.

James Mckenzie jjmckenzie51 at earthlink.net
Mon Aug 2 10:18:20 CDT 2010


Max TenEyck Woodbury <max at mtew.isa-geek.net> wrote:
>Sent: Aug 2, 2010 4:25 AM
>To: wine-devel at winehq.org
>Subject: Re: The WineAPI wiki.
>
>On 08/02/2010 07:00 AM, Dmitry Timoshkov wrote:
>> Max TenEyck Woodbury<max at mtew.isa-geek.net>  wrote:
>>
>>> I have started the WineAPI wiki at
>>>
>>> https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/wineapi/index.php?title=Main_Page
>>
>> You have chosen not very good name. There is no such a thing as Wine API,
>> Wine implements Win32 API, and doesn't specify/add anything custom to it.
>> The name "WineAPI" implies that Wine defines its own API which is not true,
>> and is confusing.
>>
This should be named, the Windows32/Window64 API as implemented by Wine Documentation site.  That is what it is.  We have found shortcomings in the MSDN documentation (I'm dealing with this right now in one function call for Richedit.)  This should be a collaborative site where Wine developers, Windows on Wine developers and others can place information on what Wine has implemented today, what needs to be implemented (with case code and discoveries) and what Wine cannot implement.

>This has been discussed elsewhere on this mailing list.
>
Agreed.

>There is a lot of information specific to Wine, particularly its
>internal structure, that is not shared with Microsoft's product.
>Further, there is a little confusing and incorrect information in the
>Microsoft documentation. Bluntly, the Microsoft documentation is what
>they want it to be. We need to document what it really is.
>
>We have tried to embed API documentation in the source code. That has
>not worked as well as it could. Alexandre Julliard has said as much. I
>think that having good documentation will help the project. Not having
>good documentation can and does hurt Wine in my opinion. I also think
>that trying to prevent the creation of that documentation might be
>harmful.

AJ has stated that documenting the Windows API and internal API calls should NOT be documented just in the source.  It bloats the source code terribly and can make code unreadable.

I agree that this Wiki should only be used to document the external interfaces to Wine as we implement Windows32/Windows64 API/ABI calls and what we have found in our testing that is different than MSDN.  We should NOT duplicate MSDN where is is proper, but rather have a note that states MSDN and other sources have been found to be proper.

As to the griping, we need to be public with our progress.  This eliminates confusion and also gives new developers a place to start.

James McKenzie



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