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▲ pjmlp 6 days ago

As someone that bought into WinRT, saw it as .NET 1.0 done right, and went through all the technology reboots between Windows 8 and WinUI 3.0/WinAppSDK, I can only double down on that remark.

It was gone so bad that most Windows developers, me included, advise focusing on Win32/Windows Forms/WPF, at BUILD 2024 WPF got back into the spotlight as official Windows GUI framework (WinUI 3.0 keeps being years away from feature parity with UWP, let alone WPF), even Office and XBox teams rather reach out to React Native than bothering to make XAML C++ in WinUI 3.0 work.

Check the agenda for BUILD 2025, hardly anything related WinUI 3.0 / WinAppSDK.

And if you want to have some fun, come around into the Github discussion issues from all the related repos.

▲Mountain_Skies 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

It doesn't seem like Microsoft and Anders Hejlsberg understand what they did when they picked Go over any dotnet language for the Typescript compiler. Anders and his fans insist it was merely picking the right tool for the job but when even the father of C# prefers using Go, combined with Microsoft's tendency to get old technology rot instead of officially cancelling, it sends a very bad message about the future of dotnet. No one wants the shitshow that has been Microsoft's desktop UI over the past decade to spread into the rest of the dotnet ecosystem but most are wary of it happening. Anders was the very last person in the company who should have been the face of the Typescript compiler project using Go.

Many have pointed this out but just get shouted down by those haven't had to endure the UI framework pain that the company has put developers through over the past ten to fifteen years. Microsoft officially is completely behind dotnet and is committed to its continued success. Same message they've given for all their UI frameworks. The only difference being dotnet still gets lots of resources but so did all of the frameworks before they were left to rot from resource and leadership starvation.

▲pjmlp 6 days ago | parent [-]

Indeed, it is one of my favourite ecosystems, however I have always been a generalist, I can't get stuck into being a XYZ Developer for too long.

As such I get what it means to be in a Microsoft shop, in a UNIX shop, in those that don't care, that use a mix of stacks whatver.

The .NET team has made great achievements turning the ship around from Windows only into a cross platform product.

However occasionally when they complain on social media, why despite all this effort, there is still some issues getting .NET adoption over Go, Rust, Java, Python, nodejs, you name it, they should start inside Redmond buildings.

DevDiv nowadays is no long .NET and C++, regardless of .NET came to be, Microsoft has seen it needs to be back into Java game and even has their own OpenJDK distro.

The initial implementation of VSCode support for Go was done by Microsoft, and nowadays they have their own Go distro.

While the .NET team makes great developments to ease cloud native development, the projects Azure works on and contributes to CNCF are a mix of Go and Rust for th most part.

As for the UI side, from what I can tell, been part of the receiving end, most of the key developers are gone, the new blood are all millennials that grew up with macOS, Linux and Chromebooks, naturally no background experience on Windows developer ecosystem, and strong focus on Web development.

Naturally they aren't to blame, they know what they know, what apparently is missing is proper managment, resources and guidance, so that they can deliver to what used to be "Developers, Developers, Developers".

▲exceptione 5 days ago | parent [-]

The smartest thing Microsoft could do, imho, is cancel all their billion UI variants, bless Avalonia and throw all the saved millions of dollars to them.

Then in one instant they get a real cross-platform UI framework, with a competent team as a free bonus.

It is actually incredibly compelling, the cross-platform .NET offering.

If you look at all the Go, Python and Rust UI toolkits, none hits the bar. They invariably write their own toy framework with 2 components, or they duct tape a leaking C++ toolkit on top with bad interop.

▲mixmastamyk 5 days ago | parent [-]

Linux distros are rewriting their installers and partition tools in web technologies these days. Hard to believe but the direction is clear, no one cares about local UI toolkits.

▲pjmlp 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, the new Fedora installer,

https://fedoramagazine.org/anaconda-installer-redesign/

▲exceptione 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I didn't know that? That is hitting a new low.

But maybe it should not surprise me, C/C++ got out of fashion (with good reasons), but the devs lost the UI toolkit with it. The average dev does not command a language with an ecosystem that is up to the task. So it is some slow Python + some crapshoot UI.

Linux finally has an option for good, performant UI, written in a sensible high level language with a vast standard library. Look at HN, people hate the electron stuff. There is just a shortage of competent programmers.

Java + JavaFX might be an other option next to .net core, but Java is verboten as well. People rather fix runtime crashes in the untyped langue they learnt in their first tutorials than broaden their horizon.

▲bsder 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Look at HN, people hate the electron stuff. There is just a shortage of competent programmers.

The problem is that, to first order, the web is the only thing that exists. To second order, the web and Windows are the only things that exist. So, any GUI toolkit needs to get traction there first--which is exactly what Electron does.

HN readership, of course, don't care about either of those so anything they develop are doomed to fail from the very start.

▲exceptione 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think you mean that in terms of commercial success? I could understand that at least a little bit, but I was mainly thinking about free (simple) system utilities, that still get shipped as complete browsers.

Bonkers. But for desktop use there are crazy good options these days, unless one cannot part from their tutorial language, which is these days oneOf {python, typescript}.

▲bsder 2 days ago | parent [-]

> But for desktop use there are crazy good options these days

Citation, please? Really, I'd love to know what those options are.

I know of nothing that works particularly well on desktop on more than one OS.

For all its faults, Electron works pretty much the same everywhere ... Windows, Linux, and macOS.

▲exceptione 2 days ago | parent [-]

I don't know about how much love JavaFX gets these days, but Java + JavaFX is a strong combo.

For .net you have Avalonia that is also cross-platform.

▲neonsunset 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

FWIW WinRT / WinUI 3 was ported onto NativeAOT (9). There is are greater ongoing efforts[0] to make the two play nice together from the people working in Windows. But I think it's just efforts from specific individuals who care and the outcome solely relies on their motivation and continued employment, and is not facilitated by the org or its culture in any way, if anything, it happens despite it.

[0]: For example https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/114024

▲pjmlp 6 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, those individuals have been great contributors and kudos to them, but it is visible, specially from the last community call how things have been going.