According to Raymond Chen's analysis on The Old New Thing, developers building Windows process and thread callbacks often follow the rules without understanding why they exist. The rules require callbacks to return quickly and avoid blocking—but some engineers queue work to system worker threads and then block waiting for it to finish, technically offloading the work while violating the underlying principle. Chen argues documentation should lead with the core constraint—fast, non-blocking execution—before listing specific prohibitions. It's a reminder that circumventing rules without grasping their rationale typically fails under load.

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