Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> It is extremely difficult for programmer-users to report bugs against the Windows API

I can't imagine living in this hell. When I find bugs in Linux, I E-mail the actual engineers directly and get responses in under 24 hours: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/Zcb3_fdyJWUlZQci@gmail.com/




Thats pretty cool. No comments left in the code after the revert though. Are they relying on their minds and commit history as documentation of invariants? How do they prevent the same mistake from being made again in the future?


Microsoft engineers have emails too.


And how would you know what email to contact in a case like this one? It’s not about “having email”


You can either go down the route of finding the team that owns the code and then contacting someone on that team, or by contacting someone you know from the company to look it up for you or report the bug on your behalf.


> the route of finding the team that owns the code and then contacting someone on that team

Nice circle, now the reader will only hav to fill in the rest of the owl.

The benefit of the open open development model of Linux is that you don't have to have "someone you know" on the inside or essentially spam whatever contacts you can dig up until you find someone who has pity on you. You have actually publicly available developers (from many different companies, including hardware manufacturers) as well as real bug trackers where you can find if other users have had the same issue.


And Twitter/X accounts.

I have had a lot more things fixed in Windows or MSVC from nagging devs on there than from reporting through any official channel.


+1 if you want to reach a real engineer they are going to be spending their free time on sites like X and not on sites like some community feedback and bug reporting form




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: