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Windows native app development is a mess

domenic.me

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Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#71

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

samiv wrote: post #42
cv5005 wrote: post #11

I'm an embedded programmer who occassionally needs to write various windows programs to interface with embedded devices (usually via serial port or usb), and I find it a breeze to write native gui programs in pure win32 and c++. Recently had to add a new feature to and old program that was last updated in the XP era and two things to note: 1. The program did not need to be updated to run on Vista, 7, 10 and 11, shit…

To me this kind of "no need to change anything" implies stability but there's a younger cohort of developers who are used to everything changing every week and who think that something that is older than week is "unmaintained" and thus buggy and broken.

One of the earliest security issues that I remember hitting Windows was that if you had a server running IIS, anyone could easily put a properly encoded string in the browser and run any command by causing IIS to shell out to cmd.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/securityb...

I mentioned in another reply the 12 different ways that you had to define a string depending on which API you had to call.

Can you imagine all of the vulnerabilities in Windows caused by the layers and layers of sediment built up over 30 years?

It would be as if the modern ARM Macs had emulators for 68K, PPC, 32-bit x86 apps and 64K x86 apps (which they do) and had 64 bit Carbon libraries (just to keep Adobe happy)

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#72

Post by Sindisil »

aaomidi wrote: post #56
wolvoleo wrote: post #3

> And from what I can tell, neither are most developers. The Hacker News commentariat loves to bemoan the death of native apps. But given what a mess the Windows app platform is, I’ll pick the web stack any day, with Electron or Tauri to bridge down to the relevant Win32 APIs for OS integration. Well yes as a user I prefer native apps for their performance. It's clearly a mess to develop native apps as the article sh…

When Microsoft themselves use electron to develop apps what expectations can we have on other devs?

To do better?

It's demonstrably possible. And further, why does what some portion of Microsoft, a huge, multi-headed beast, does qualify as the bar for what is reasonable for users to expect?

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#73

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Dwedit wrote: post #70
jordand wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one big challenge I've had with big legacy Win32/C++ codebases is migrating it fully from 32bit to 64bit. Loads of know-how and docs for complex GUI controls and structs are lost to time, or really fragmented. Other than that, yeah it really does all just work once you're past that.

In 32-bit windows, you used to be able to see if a pointer was valid or not by seeing if it pointed to the last 2GB of address space. If it did, it was pointing to Kernel memory that was not valid for user mode code. But then Large Address Aware (4GB limit) changes everything, and you can't do that anymore. In order for a program to be Large Address Aware, you need to not try to do things like check high bits of poin…

That sounds like the same ugly hack that caused programs not to be “32 bit clean” back in the day for Macs

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#75

Post by dgxyz »

user____name wrote: post #45
cv5005 wrote: post #11

I'm an embedded programmer who occassionally needs to write various windows programs to interface with embedded devices (usually via serial port or usb), and I find it a breeze to write native gui programs in pure win32 and c++. Recently had to add a new feature to and old program that was last updated in the XP era and two things to note: 1. The program did not need to be updated to run on Vista, 7, 10 and 11, shit…

I feel like I'm the only person in the world who would rather write ugly win32 jank for the rest of my days than ever having to touch an "elegant" or "well structured" Cocoa codebase. In win32 if you want a button you call a function and pass a hande, in the Apple world you first subclass 7 interfaces in some unreadable Smalltalk-wannabe syntax and pray you don't need to access the documentation. And of course they c…

After bouncing around GUI toolkits (from win32 to SwiftUI) and web for 30 years I have simply run out of fucks. They all suck. Each in their own unique way. Apple aren't worth singling out - they are just their own special isolated variant of it.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#77

Post by ocdtrekkie »

I write .NET Framework 4.8 apps. And I will until .NET has an actual support lifetime. 4.8 will still be supported and receiving security updates in ten years, .NET 10 will be gone in 2.

Hobby projects should not be built on a platform that is constantly changing underneath.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#78

Post by dgxyz »

cv5005 wrote: post #11

I'm an embedded programmer who occassionally needs to write various windows programs to interface with embedded devices (usually via serial port or usb), and I find it a breeze to write native gui programs in pure win32 and c++. Recently had to add a new feature to and old program that was last updated in the XP era and two things to note: 1. The program did not need to be updated to run on Vista, 7, 10 and 11, shit…

Yeah that doesn't always work that well. Think you were lucky.

Add high DPI to the mix and things get rough very quickly. Also the common control have weird input issues (try ctrl+backspace in an Edit control). All those little things need to be fixed carefully for something to be ok in 2026.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#79

Post by IlikeMadison »

ozim wrote: post #6

That is why everyone even Microsoft themselves does Electron. Running with html/css/js has benefits it really is open and free development based on international standards and not locked into any single big tech.

Electron is the worst thing that happened to quality software. I spoke to two HR guys last year at the company I'm working at and they told me they ditch every single resume mentioning "web technologies" in them. Funny part is when they also told me these "bad" resumes are for the vast majority H1B wannabees.

Re: Windows native app development is a mess

#80

Post by mellosouls »

Really nice article, thanks - yes I found the same myself recently when trying to write a trivial (I thought) Windows app.

I first investigated the Windows native options and was pretty bamboozled; I wanted to use the "mainstream" "up to date" option (presumably c# and some framework) but as TFA describes, it wasn't at all clear which that was.

I ended up doing it in python with pyqt then finding out a clean deployment was a pain, so revisited the .Net options and remembered why I'd discarded them in the first place...

It is indeed a complete mess (at least coming in anew) and a very strange situation for the world's main desktop environment to be in.

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