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I fixed Windows native development

marler8997.github.io

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Re: I fixed Windows native development

#11

Post by dgxyz »

criemen wrote: post #2

This is amazing. At $workplace, we have a script that extracts a toolchain from a GitHub actions windows runner, packages it up, stuffs it into git LFS, which is then pulled by bazel as C++ toolchain. This is the more scalable way, and I assume it could still somewhat easily be integrated into a bazel build.

Keeping CI entirely out of windows desktop development is the biggest efficiency and cost improvement I've seen in the last 15 years. Our CI toolchain broke so we moved back to a release manager doing it manually. It takes him 20x less time to build it and distribute it (scripted) than it does to maintain the CI pipeline and his desktop machine is several times faster than any cloud CI node we can get hold of.

Edit: Uses a shit load less actual energy than full-building a product thousands of times that never gets run.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#13

Post by dgxyz »

glimshe wrote: post #9
dgxyz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Any user interface toolkit that isn't at least 10 years old should be ignored on windows unless you want to rewrite everything one day.

I wonder if people still use WinForms, MFC and WPF...

We still use win32!

(granted we made our own MFC around it)

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#16

Post by Philpax »

At the risk of being that guy, I haven't had any issues onboarding people onto native projects written in Rust. rustup does a great job of fetching the required toolchains without issue. I'd imagine the same is also true of Go or Zig.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#19

Post by shigawire »

glimshe wrote: post #9
dgxyz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Any user interface toolkit that isn't at least 10 years old should be ignored on windows unless you want to rewrite everything one day.

I wonder if people still use WinForms, MFC and WPF...

Still migrating an enterprise app off WPF to this day.

Re: I fixed Windows native development

#20

Post by viraptor »

dgxyz wrote: post #8
pjmlp wrote: post #6

It starts by not looking into Windows through UNIX developer glasses. The only issue currently plaguing Windows development is the mess with WinUI and WinAppSDK since Project Reunion, however they are relatively easy to ignore.

Yes. Any user interface toolkit that isn't at least 10 years old should be ignored on windows unless you want to rewrite everything one day.

Why? You may end up with something that doesn't get much attention anymore, but none of the official gui approaches have ever been removed as far as I know. Win32, MFC, winforms, wpf, winui, maui are all still available and apps using them are functional. Even winjs still works apparently, even if it was handed over.

I wouldn't start an app in most of them today, but I wouldn't rewrite one either without a good reason.

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