Software engineering

Software engineering has become both more and less simple since 1993 and 1994, when many questions were posed. Unfortunately, the answers that emerged in 1995 were less satisfying than many people had hoped they would be. The field is now simpler because, among other reasons, the purchasing clout of 70 million Windows users has made Microsoft´s proprietary application program interfaces (APIs) a standard to which the rest of the software industry-or at least that portion dependent on Windows for its bread and butter-must adhere. An API is a set of rules for writing function calls that access functions in a library; programs that use API-compliant calls can communicate with any others that use the API, regardless of the others´ specifics. In the past, several APIs would compete for market share. After a shakeout, the survivors would merge their APIs into a single industry standard controlled by a standards organization. But Microsoft´s successes in operating systems and applications have transformed its Messaging API (MAPI), its OLE (formerly an acronym for Object Linking and Embedding but now treated as a word in its own right), and its Win32 (the API common to Windows NT and 95) into de facto standards that most developers know. Whether Microsoft´s dominance is a boon or curse, it is a fact that they must accept