> most Microsoft APIs are >largely< redundant. Say i've counted 1500
> different API calls in windows.h ... and that doesnt include new bloat
> like ActiveX, 3D stuff and the networking nightmare called Netbeui and SMB
> over TCP.
>
> Compare this with the 167 Linux system calls.
You, however, are neglecting that the many Windows API calls are for
graphical manipulation, e.g., InvalidateRect(), MsgBox(), and
ShowWindow(). For this to be an accurate comparison you'd also have to
include the Xlib and perhaps also X Toolkit calls.
I think perhaps you are missing the point about supporting the Windows
APIs and such. The idea is not to incorporate this into the primary
development environment, but to make it easy for the multitudinous
Windows apps to be ported to Linux (or UN*X in general). Linux would be
a much more appealing target platform for professional developers if it
required little more than a new-line conversion (for readability), a
re-make, and a modicum of debugging. Of course, these things always seem
kludgy and I doubt if it would ever work properly.
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