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That's like your opinion, dude...

The main thing limiting C++ code in UWP is sandbox, not the compiler. C++/CX is a glue language between proper C++ and the rest of the OS - you can freely mix it with proper C++ (11, 14, etc) within the same binary. I successfully compiled many open source cross-platform libraries for UWP without any serious issues.

As for complexity and generally APIs, UWP is way better than old Windows APIs. It is fairly consistent, predictable, and modern. I'm guessing you are really used to the old ways, but I don't really understand how can one prefer WndProc / manual message handling or message maps to clean approach of XAML; or think it was better.

UWP is worse than Win32API, right. It's still half finished (many things aren't possible) and it sits on top of Win32 subsystem.

Another API and framework the good 16 year old DotNet never replaced Win32 either. All process that ship with and runs by default in Windows XP/Vista/7 or Office 2003/2007/2010 are Win32 and non is DotNet based. (you can verify with ProcessExplorer)

5 days ago MS declared DotNet a legacy thing. ASP.net 2 will only be compatible with Dotnet.core 2 (which is incompatible to DotNet and Dotnet.core 1). You can read about the outcry there https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14297974

The only thing that keeps people in general as well as enterprise companies on Windows is Win32 compatibility and Office. MS is now just milking their products with little QA and hostile to end users privacy "the user and his data is the product".

MS really missed the chance in 1999 to refresh Win32API with an improved Win64API. Like they did before - remember Win16API. Win16API got refactored and improved overall while keeping almost code compatibility - only a few tweaks and a re-compile were necessary back in 1994/95, and Win32s layer got backported to Win3.11. But MS went full in with their failed DotNet vision in 1999 and abdomened Win32API ever since. And never upgraded the Win32API, in fact the 64bit Windows still have the same Win32API and MS completely missed the opportunity window that was open for them. So much stupid management decision, it hurts.

UWP is about 10 years or more too late.

C++/CX is a dialect of C++ that has refcounted pointers (like COM). It is much better than the (also proprietary) extensions for COM to C++ MSVC had decades ago, and it is also much better IMO that managed C++ and C++/CLI. Of course, in a way it is still a hack. But I read that MS is also working on a way of doing managed components in modern C++ (i.e. 11/14/17). MS is doing a lot of great work in the area of modern C++ lately (surprisingly to me).

And UWP is yet another incompatible version of XAML/WPF/Silverlight/.... I don't like the castrated nature of it, it is incredible simple things are hard or impossible (like cross process drag and drop, which is not supported even in MS Office store apps. Or any kind of IPC, or networking with localhost). But things are getting better, as MS removes the worst pain points and developers learn to circumvent the missing parts.

One thing that seems great in UWP is it's async-first approach. I learned to appreciate that paradigm with Python/Twisted and JS.

So it's not all bad. If Microsoft had UWP 10 or 15 years ago (in their "Avalon" phase) it would have been great. Now, it's just "meh".

In an alternative reality were DotNet never happened and MS evolved Win32API with COM (so basically continue the strategy of 1989-1998 until the great break with DotNet happened), yes then a new "Win64API" with modern C++ would have been great. But the Web happened, DotNet original vision failed, their pivoted vision was declared as legacy 5 days ago too, and UWP failed with no one buying their Win10phone (0.02% global market share).

> it requires much more boilerplate code to get stuff done

Depends on the language. In C# it’s straightforward. In C++ yes it could be cumbersome. But that’s a language limitation, C++ lacks async-await so some boilerplate code is required to consume asynchronous APIs.

> good luck trying to compile most existing C/C++ code on UWP

Did that more than once. The largest problem is slightly different CRT, i.e. not all CRT functions are available.

For the language however, C++/CX is merely a syntactic sugar on top of regular C++ compiler that compile your stuff into native code. You can enable/disable “Consume Windows Runtime Extensions (/ZW)” for individual C++ source files inside a single project. The linker will happily link everything together.

Also, if you don’t like C++/CX you don’t even required to use it. You can compile your C/C++ code into a UWP DLL that’s not windows runtime components, but expose C-style API instead. You’ll be able to use that in UWP apps just fine.

Precisely. And the fact Bing is the only search engine allowed (on spurious safety grounds) and Chrome is barred tells you everything. This is destined to fail right? The main advantage of, say, a Chromebook is that it boots instantly and handles multiple users with no IT oversight

Did not MS get dinged for promoting IE , banning competitors completely is even worse

Yeah back in the final days of anti-trust actually existing. Monopolies are fine now, big corps do whatever they want.

They would argue 10S is only one skew but it does seem absurd

I think they mostly expected UWP apps to written in .net. You don't need a weird language for that.

I've never been able to figure out what direction UWP apps were supposed to go. At one point it was C++, then it was .NET, then it was some dialect of JavaScript. The political tides ebb and flow, but Win32 abides.

The point is that UWP is basically built on COM and can be used by all 3.

C/C++ is good for people who have existing C++ codebases or skills, which they want to bring into the UWP world.

C#/F# for new app development.

JavaScript to bring in electron/web guys on board.

The legacy Windows API itself is a confusing mess with outdated paradigms from when desktop PCs had dramatically less RAM and were much less powerful. Those that don't remember history are doomed to repeat it.