31–40 of 143 posts
I think the vision of multi-factor OS is right but the execution doesn't pass a basic UX test.
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This is exactly what is holding back Win32: there has not been any serious development of the desktop developer story since WPF in 2005 (WPF only received token updates since then, the last major update was in 2010 when they finally added a DataGrid control, lol) - but WPF is not well-suited for many types of software which have to fall-back on “pure” Win32 and the story there is nothing but depressing. Apple got it…
> The story is so bad Microsoft’s own flagship software has to build their own UI frameworks I think this might be the other way round: if they're not eating their own dogfood, it's much easier for the UI framework to come adrift from actual use cases. It's really telling that in Windows 8/10 they "modernised" some , but not all, of the control panel UI. It's basically random as to whether a setting you need will be…
I wonder what the overall adoption rates are for UWP. As someone who's written Windows software since the 90s, I can't shake the feeling that Microsoft just churns out completely new development stacks every few years.
Like everyone else, the biggest difference is that Microsoft keeps the old tech around, while most other companies are willing to loose customers that don't want to move into the new stacks. On one side it is a big reason why they have achieved their market size on the desktop, on the other side we reach this kind of situations where new tech improved tech like Singularity, Midori, Longhorn or now UWP gets thrown int…
Very few commercial products are able to drop Windows 7 support (and like, literally zero enterprise products can drop Windows 7 support).
So, no matter how nice UWP gets, most companies that would still be willing to write a native Windows app are 5+ years out from being allowed to adopt it, entirely because of how Microsoft chose to release it.
I wonder what the overall adoption rates are for UWP. As someone who's written Windows software since the 90s, I can't shake the feeling that Microsoft just churns out completely new development stacks every few years.
There is also Electron/Javascript. Skype/Teams are developed in it and they have invested a lot of effort into TypeScript.
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What's bad about GDI? (I used to do windows but have not been following, I remember that you need to do GetDC and ReleaseDC on a window handle to get the device context and then to release it - in pairs, else...)
It doesn't do antialiasing.
Touch centered desktop uis need to die
One of the features I specifically look for in a laptop is "NO TOUCH SCREEN". I really don't understand it. Why would I want touch on a laptop or desktop PC?
But I'm a "don't leave smudge marks on my screen" type of person.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The story is so bad Microsoft’s own flagship software has to build their own UI frameworks I think this might be the other way round: if they're not eating their own dogfood, it's much easier for the UI framework to come adrift from actual use cases. It's really telling that in Windows 8/10 they "modernised" some , but not all, of the control panel UI. It's basically random as to whether a setting you need will be…
I do Windows development since 3.0, currently maintaining a couple of Forms and WPF applications, the Forms are the hardest to maintain due event handling spaghetti code instead of proper MVVM with data binding, no use of Table/StackLayout components and still do background handling in BackgroundWorker classes.
I also wasn't a big fan of XAML - no matter how much time I spent using it, it mostly seemed more difficult and awkward to get components where you wanted them than with WinForms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like everyone else, the biggest difference is that Microsoft keeps the old tech around, while most other companies are willing to loose customers that don't want to move into the new stacks. On one side it is a big reason why they have achieved their market size on the desktop, on the other side we reach this kind of situations where new tech improved tech like Singularity, Midori, Longhorn or now UWP gets thrown int…
Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with UWP. It's actually pretty nice to write apps with it (in my personal opinion, anyway). But UWP only supports Windows 10. Very few commercial products are able to drop Windows 7 support (and like, literally zero enterprise products can drop Windows 7 support). So, no matter how nice UWP gets, most companies that would still be willing to write a native Windows app are 5+ year…
Might not be an issue in 5 years, by then MS will probably has a new new framework .
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the features I specifically look for in a laptop is "NO TOUCH SCREEN". I really don't understand it. Why would I want touch on a laptop or desktop PC?
I sometimes use touch on my XPS. I realized it's only when I'm showing stuff to others, and because the touchpad is inadequate (like broken side scrolling). But I'm a "don't leave smudge marks on my screen" type of person.