Discussion
markus_zhang: Steven Sinofsky wrote this piece a couple of weeks ago about the same topic:https://x.com/stevesi/status/2036921223150440542
bananaflag: This barely mentions Windows Forms, which is the cleanest and fastest way to code Windows GUI apps.A few years ago, I wanted to prototype something quick and I wrote it in Windows Forms over C# (all code, no visual editor).
whynotmaybe: As of today, I only use 2 solutions for Windows GUI :- windows forms in .net- flutterAll the rest always presents itself with a sheer aura of "It was a great idea but we couldn't finish it".Without ever discussing with anyone from MS about it, I think they stopped improving/working on this because of electron.Any web developer can build a good enough website and a good enough desktop app with electron.
furyofantares: > Dead silence. One person suggested WPF. Another said WinUI 3. A third asked if they should just use Electron. The meeting went sideways and we never did answer the question.> That silence is the story.These LLMs are just awful at writing.
c-c-c-c-c: that part really didn’t make sense to me. This is true for all desktop platforms.
Surac: Today i still use C# with Windows.Forms. All my old knowledge is still usefull. People know how to use a Windows.Forms program.
binarymax: Given how bad windows has become since windows 7, I’ve been wondering. Does Bill Gates still use Windows? Does he put up with the horribleness?
markus_zhang: I think Bill pretty much chilled out since he stepped down?
binarymax: Yeah of course. He has nothing to do with Microsoft operations or strategy. But does he still use the products?
regularfry: Having spent some time kicking around the Delphi space I got quite into WPF in 2007ish. By 2010 I had not just sworn off it, I'd sworn off Windows entirely. The constant stream of rug-pulls as one bit of MS managed to pull off a political heist over another and - oh no - yet another "latest and greatest" technology was effectively deprecated within 18 months of launch, invalidating all the effort you put in to staying up to date just became a pointless treadmill.Fortunately Rails was taking off at that point so it was fairly easy to change horses and just ignore it.
TazeTSchnitzel: I'm not sure I can take such an article seriously if it doesn't mention that the WinRT/UWP/WinUI stack is also based on XAML, and that a fundamental design goal of WinRT was to let people use either C++ or C# according to taste.Also, the AI smell in this article is just too much.
furyofantares: I agree, although I was talking about: Dead silence. Here's what 3 people said (the opposite of silence). Then the meeting went sideways (also the opposite of silence). The silence is the story. WHAT SILENCE?
avazhi: He immediately said they never did make a decision, so probably that indecision.Having said that, this article feels like AI slop to me. Couldn’t get through it.
mentalgear: I'm planing on switching over to QubesOS - way more secure (especially considering rogue LLM-agents) and visually not much worse from windows ... maybe even more cohesive.
supliminal: I used the more recent Petzold examples to successfully bind DirectWrite to Direct3D, but yeah it’s been a crapshoot otherwise. Still have the Windows Programming (5e?) bible around here somewhere. Took awhile to grind through it.
OptionOfT: Case in point after Edge updated this morning:https://imgur.com/a/dWp5OhjDid they even try to make it look like the new context menus?
taylodl: Microsoft had a lot of great talent suffering from a lack of leadership and coherent vision. They foreshadowed everything wrong with Big Tech today.
goalieca: The writing style was really poor. Too many words saying too few things.
seanmcdirmid: He still visits Microsoft occasionally. A friend showed me a picture of him visiting Microsoft in Beijing a few months ago (he was excited about BillG visiting). So my guess is that he still has an interest in Microsoft products.
super256: [delayed]
grebc: It’s great, some vendors have fantastic component libraries for reasonable prices.Unreal that MS bet the farm in Windows on so many other turds instead of boring old WinForms/Win32.
steve1977: That illustration at the end of the article is quite something.
lenkite: The problem is that they just could not commit to anything for more than 2 years after Win32.They had something reasonably good in WinRT. They should have stuck to that. But Nadella came in, said Azure Cloud is the future and abandoned the Windows platform.
jpeter: So the windows team hates .NET, so they use react webviews and put them in explorer and start menu???
hermitcrab: Microsoft GUI development is a mess. They don't seem to care. Just look at the mishmash of different GUI styles in Windows 11.Thankfully I have been mostly insulated from it by sticking to Qt and C++ for the last 25 years.
api: Nobody really has. Apple comes the closest but they keep rug pulling it in weird ways.Windows and Mac in the 90s had very consistent GUIs with such consistency in things like keyboard shortcuts that apps could easily be learned. The term “intuitive” was king in the realm of UI design.Then the web hit and all that died.
g-b-r: Just have a look at the final picture if you're unsure if it's slop
