win32metadata VS cppwin32

As /u/huellenoperator notes, that this needs a pointer to a mutable string comes straight from microsoft through win32metadata. Maybe it's a mistake on Microsoft's side, but if it's not you're taking big risks.

Microsoft offers official "bindings" to Win32 APIs through win32metadata. However, until recently, it did not include metadata for kernel-level functions or WDK. In early 2021, an issue was raised through windows-rs regarding this limitation, but progress was slow until now. Microsoft has finally released official metadata for WDK, which can be found on the wdkmetadata repository. The latest comment on the issue thread can be found here:

for win32metadata's kernel api tracking issue, https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/401

Any examples? Since the API bindings in windows-sys are generated from the metadata generated from official Windows SDK headers I'd not expect to see this kind of difference.

You might also look at this project: https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata

There is still the occasional incredibly subtle link time fuckery in Rust.

https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/1274

"Minor" semver updates to crates breaking things via e.g. unexpected MSRV bumps is pretty common too, with some resulting bitrot. That said, I agree with you that things in Rust are at least better. Imperfect, but better.

Win32 is available as metadata to enable adoption in as many languages as possible. Are there some things missing? Yes. The Microsoft team acknowledges that and encourages asking for the things you need so they can add them to the metadata.

It might be interesting to have bindings generated for the entirety of Win32 API through https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata

Hi JB! Funny to cross paths with you in this context. I don't know if you remember me but I was a rookie programmer who got the pleasure of joining the VideoLan Conference in Dublin back in 2014, and then Paris the next year, and you were very kind to me.

The GitHub issue title here is unfortunately misleading. I have renamed it to "ideas to improve windows header files and libc". Also, I hope it is clear that I rebutted the points made by the OP, because I completely agree with your summary that the mingw-w64 people are skilled, nice and very clever and think about all use cases.

If any drive-by HN readers work at Microsoft, please help us with this issue: https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/766

I would imagine something like https://github.com/microsoft/cppwin32 would maybe be an easier way forward for that?

no, Microsoft has rewritten the windows API in C++ I think https://github.com/microsoft/cppwin32

An official work in progress Windows binding, still far behind of what C# existing bindings are capable of, or legacy toolkits like MFC.

Also given how the team has managed C++/CX transition to C++/WinRT with lesser tooling stuck on C++17, dropped Modern C++ bindings [0][1], before going into other shinny thing, I wonder how long they will keep at it.

[0] - https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2021/01/21/making...

[1] - https://github.com/microsoft/cppwin32

If you want to use the old tooling, your C++ is going to be very "C with classes," and it's going to use a lot of weird datatypes that don't feel very C++ at all. Microsoft had a project for wrapping the Windows API in idiomatic C++, but appear to have abandoned it. If you choose to go down this road, Charles Petzold's Programming Windows is the book to get. Yes, it's 25 years old, but all the new stuff is just new COM controls (which you can look up in the API documentation)--the fundamentals of making a Windows API program work seriously have not changed.

Even Rust has a native projection of the windows API (which is actually pretty usable). This projection has the same roots as the C++ projection mentioned by u/amnesiac0x07C5. So I don't believe macros are a blocker here.

See : https://github.com/microsoft/cppwin32

Microsoft have recently put decent effort into making the Windows APIs more accessible to C++ users. One of these efforts is called C++/WinRT, and it specifically targets applications intended for "modern" Windows (Windows 8 and later). There's another effort underway at Microsoft for making the older Win32 API more C++-friendly, but it isn't documented nearly as well.

There is a similar project for C++, but it sadly seems to be dead already. The last commit was one year ago.

not that hard to wrap windows.h and undef the annoying stuff, and only a handful of files in your codebase will include it anyway. on the other hand stuff like this looks extremely worse and exactly like the kind of c++ that is hard banned in gamedev codebases

They are, actually, it's linked from the article: https://github.com/microsoft/cppwin32