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Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

zdnet.com

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Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#31

Post by jetti »

oceanswave wrote: post #5

There are a lot of issues with this article - Windows S is no more a 'new' OS than an environment running AppLocker is a new OS. The $49 'upgrade' from WinS to a 'full' Windows 10 is simply removing the restriction, it's the same OS through and through UWP doesn't explicitly require XAML as part of the stack directx and win2d provide more direct access to graphics hardware Edge is not a Native UWP application - whate…

>Edge is not a Native UWP application - whatever that means

My assumption is that it is compiled with .NET Native[0]. That would explain why it is only available on Windows 10, as only Windows 10 supports .NET Native.

[0] https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn584397%28v=vs.110...

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#32

Post by frik »

flohofwoe wrote: post #15

The article paints UWP as a modern programming environment, superior to Win32, that only 'lazy developers' would reject, when in reality it is a confusing mess of desktop and outdated mobile paradigms from 10 years ago when mobile devices had dramatically less RAM and were much less powerful then 'real computers'. UWP is in many ways worse than Win32, it requires much more boilerplate code to get stuff done, and requ…

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.

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#33

Post by SA500 »

walshemj wrote: post #29
SA500 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#34

Post by jetti »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #4

"Some of it is developer laziness. It's not like they haven't had 15 years to learn and adopt .NET and the past five years to adopt Metro/Modern/UWP." Once I can't target Win32 anymore I'll switch to the browser. Metro/Modern/UWP isn't on my radar. I doubt I'm alone in those thoughts.

That line really bothers me. I'm writing a new application in WPF (thus using Win32) and am avoiding UWP because of the fact that I want (actually need to) support older platforms. As I'm writing this software to make money and it is B2B, I can't afford to ignore Windows 7 as many businesses are still running it and many more still target it.

I'm currently learning UWP as well but why would I bet my product on a technology that limits me to a single operating system version?

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#35

Post by UK-AL »

douche wrote: post #30
UK-AL wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#36

Post by yodon »

robotnoises wrote: post #18

I suppose this means no more electron or nwjs apps, either, probably to many's delight.

Electron apps can be packaged up as UWP and submitted to the Windows Store (with the restriction that you can't currently target Xbox, HoloLens, or Windows Mobile via Electron)[0]

[0] https://www.onmsft.com/news/electron-apps-can-now-converted-...

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#37

Post by kuon »

pjmlp wrote: post #16
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #4

"Some of it is developer laziness. It's not like they haven't had 15 years to learn and adopt .NET and the past five years to adopt Metro/Modern/UWP." Once I can't target Win32 anymore I'll switch to the browser. Metro/Modern/UWP isn't on my radar. I doubt I'm alone in those thoughts.

Not everyone enjoys doing web development, personally every web project I take part on feels like being in the galleys.

I really hope this will change. I am testing elm now and I think this kind of approach is the future. But it saddens me that we had "proper functional languages" for nearly 60 years and it took all this time to realize their benefit.

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#39

Post by maxxxxx »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #4

"Some of it is developer laziness. It's not like they haven't had 15 years to learn and adopt .NET and the past five years to adopt Metro/Modern/UWP." Once I can't target Win32 anymore I'll switch to the browser. Metro/Modern/UWP isn't on my radar. I doubt I'm alone in those thoughts.

Same here. After the mess with WPF, WinRT, Silverlight, HTML5/JS and now UWP I am done with windows desktop. We just ported one big WPF app to web and will continue to do so.

Re: Microsoft knows Windows is obsolete. a sneak peek at its replacement

#40

Post by captainmuon »

flohofwoe wrote: post #15

The article paints UWP as a modern programming environment, superior to Win32, that only 'lazy developers' would reject, when in reality it is a confusing mess of desktop and outdated mobile paradigms from 10 years ago when mobile devices had dramatically less RAM and were much less powerful then 'real computers'. UWP is in many ways worse than Win32, it requires much more boilerplate code to get stuff done, and requ…

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".

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