Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

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How do they expect desktop developers to bet on anything MS does? Since .NET came out they constantly keep changing direction without any cohesive strategy. The server development strategy looks pretty good with MVC and now Core. But desktop development is just terrible. If I have to write a new app I will either think about making it web based or maybe use qt but I think I will avoid any MS UI toolkit.

It's simple. You wait for five years before you start developing in any given technology. By that time it will either have been substituted or polished.

UWP was a clustefuck from the beginning, especially after everyone realized that MS intended to give-up on mobile. There aren't many people who bought into it and given Microsoft's infamous support for legacy code it's no surprise that they decided to tank it. Bottom line, my guess is that very few people will be hurt by this decision. They've all moved to greener pastures long ago.

Suppose I'm going to add simple Windows gui for an app today, what should I use out of > 5 year old technologies? WinAPI in classic way, using Petzold's "Programming Windows, 4th edition" as a guidebook? WinAPI wouldn't be enough, I suppose, so can I use at least Comctl32 or is it deprecated? Should I use MFC? ATL? COM? Or should I use WinForms with .NET? Even if my app is written in native code? Isn't it for "business apps" only? Can I use it to write another Winamp?

I'd probably choose Qt.

so can I use at least Comctl32 or is it deprecated?

Of course you can. The Common Controls are part of Win32 in the same way that user32 and gdi32 are.

Also worth noting that Microsoft is in the unique position that they do not want to break countless applications and realise that backwards compatibility is their strong point and a major reason why people use Windows, so even if something is "deprecated", unless it's related to some low-level system functionality, chances are it is not going to stop working. I'd say that they use "deprecation" more as a way of marketing newer-but-not-necessarily-better technologies.

There is no clear choice in windows desktop anymore. Only obsolete or soon to be obsolete options. If I had to do it now my first choice would be to go web based, then qt or WPF. Electron looks very appealing too. Pretty sad but it looks like MS doesn’t care about the desktop much anymore.

None of it is going away, the problem is it doesn't get the attention it deserves. All the while Microsoft is busy introducing UWP or whatever comes next they are ignoring everything that came behind it.

On the subject of cross platform I wouldn't go for qt or anything like it unless I really needed it. All those frameworks are too compromised if you are targeting a single platform. Possibly even if you aren't.

I gave up on chasing every new shiny thing MS produces. Winforms work great. They are stable - there are a million packages for it out there and it can work with the version of the framework that's installed with every copy of Windows.

I have seen systems developed over decades and they are a complete mess, the worst had these components:

- vb com+ - c++ dcom - c++ mfc - .net 1.1 winform - .net 4 - wpf - delphi

Microsoft causes this by events like build which go “we are betting everything on x” then the year later it is “x was cool but look at xx”

Gahhhhhh

VB6 forms designer was actually really good. I don't there is still anything that rivals it in terms of stability, customization, speed and round-tripping.

And it's open-source now! I'm looking forward to people creating a better, more portable winforms even if we can't get it from Microsoft.

Doesn't Mono have Winforms already?

Yes, but I don't personally know how complete it is. The only company using it that I'm aware of is Plastic SCM.

This is how we use it:

https://www.mono-project.com/news/2019/02/13/plastic-scm-a-f...

Too bad Winforms is butt ugly.

It looks native, it's fine. The problem I've found is high-dpi support is still a dogs dinner.

Pretty sure they've fixed that in recent releases (within 18 months, I believe) of Windows 10. You should only need to recompile to gain hi-DPI awareness, if I recall properly.

No, there are still problems. My understanding is there will be further work on the .Net Core version although I haven't paid any attention to that so far.

I use WinForms, DirectX9, and .Net 2.0. It's been rock solid for about a decade or more and no sign of that being about to change. I just ignore all the new app store, WPF, UWP, Metro style, etc. stuff.

.net 3.0 is new, lulz

Not here, please.

If you read the article, it doesn't sound like anything is being abandoned, so I'm not sure how your comment is relevant here. MS does have a tradition of abandoning products (like some other infamous tools vendors) but UWP isn't being abandoned according to the article.

I think we have distinguish between UWP as UI toolkit and UWP for as library for system functions. The latter will stay but I am really doubtful about the former. I don't know of any aspect where UWP UI ie better than WPF or Win32 so I doubt it will get more than the little adoption it already has.

Windows.UI.Composition makes the UWP UI toolkit way better than anything that came before it.

https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2016/09/16/animations...

WinUI is actually open source, and WinUI 3.0 will open-source all XAML controls, XAML Stack and Composition.

But when will MS lose interest in this too and do something else? I don’t think it can live as open source without a lot of MS support.

Well, this also work for everything MSFT launches. Not exclusive to UWP or anything.

Does it matter what flavor of the month they focus on, as long as they don’t drop support for things?

Silverlight, Winforms, MFC, etc. still all work perfectly fine.

I'd be curious to know if you are still using a web toolkit from 10 years ago.

Desktop development was a dream with Delphi but Microsoft decided to compete against it and then undermine it instead of supporting it. Not just a dick move, but DaF.

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