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Comment by pjmlp | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft 365 is the reason why the new add-in model is focused on Web technologies, and mostly deprecated going forward for new forward.

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It's focused on web tech as COM add-ins are a huge source of security and instability in Office apps. It's also more flexible for developers as they can modify the backend without having to update the client and the deployment model is significantly easier for admins.

The .NET ones are also going away.

Regarding COM, it wouldn't be that bad when using COM Servers.

However I do agree that although COM as idea is enticing, Microsoft keeps failing to deliver a productive way to use it, despite how much they keep focusing on it for Windows extensibility and API delivery since Vista.

they don't care more about API the same way the cared in Vista days https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...

Indeed, nowadays I feel myself a fool for having advocated for WinRT, it was one of the reasons why I returned back to Web and distributed systems, after spending four years back in Windows GUI development land.

And my advice now is for .NET devs, stay with Windows Forms or WPF, depending on which approach they favour.

For C++, I suggest the aging MFC if it has to be on the Visual Studio (still better out of the box experience than WinUI 3.0 for C++, and C++/WinRT is in maintenance anyway), but really Qt or C++ Builder are much better option.

On the other hand, if you can get it to work in the new O365 architecture using whatever JS API they're exposing now, you can call it "cloud-based" or maybe even "serverless".

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