I’m writing a DSAPI plugin which adds another layer of security on top of the Domino server. Can’t really elaborate too much about what it exactly does and that’s also beyond the scope of this post.

I downloaded the C API from Lotus (that name should already have been a warning), started Visual Studio and started coding (of course, like you, I do not like to read manuals). And it took me 5 minutes to realize… there is no C++ API for DSAPI. Only C. Sigh…

Been there? Liked it? I don’t. I’ve been programming in Java for about 7++ years and I code in C# for around 1.5 years now. I guess I’m spoiled. Damn, do I miss those classes. C is working against me. Really, I guess the language has a severe dislike against me. Pointers… they give me nightmares. char arrays for strings… brrr.

No, this is not what I regard as fun. Lotus IBM, why is there no C++ API for DSAPI?

Update: Thanks to the pointer from Richard I found the way to do it with C#. Besides the Java API there was also a .NET API available I could use. Using a CPP ‘bridge’ DLL I can now call managed C# code from C. This ‘feels’ much smoother.