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Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

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Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#91

Post by zigzag312 »

deafpolygon wrote: post #76
bob1029 wrote: post #22

We are huge into Microsoft but MAUI is on the no touch list. After maintaining a Blazor (server-side) app for a few years, it has become clear to me that even if the abstractions are ideal, the tooling may cripple the entire experience. I don't trust Visual Studio 2022 to not treat me like a piece of shit in a UI style project anymore. The only project types I really trust to not suck are: class library, console app,…

What UI framework should I be focusing on in 2023? Should I focus on web-based framework (vis-a-vis Electron or similar platform) or is there something more suitable for desktop UI?

Great multiplatform UI framework doesn't exists currently. Next best thing is to choose a framework that best fits your requirements.

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#92

Post by JustLurking2022 »

thenerdhead wrote: post #65
biorach wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a typical open source project. The developers are all Microsoft employees who, in theory, are paid to work on MAUI

How does getting paid change things? Many big tech companies "sponsor" OSS in this way and they have project backlogs bigger than the allowed limit on GitHub. https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/9678

Because it implies these are people have far fewer excuses for the seeming lack of care about user feedback than some unpaid volunteer.

Considering many companies have contacts ranging from millions to hundreds of millions with Microsoft, and developer tools are a major selling point for the ecosystem, it's certainly reasonable to be upset that when your organization can't depend on them. It makes planning a nightmare - it may take a month or 5 years to deliver your feature, depending on when the bugs get fixed.

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#93

Post by deafpolygon »

zigzag312 wrote: post #91
deafpolygon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What UI framework should I be focusing on in 2023? Should I focus on web-based framework (vis-a-vis Electron or similar platform) or is there something more suitable for desktop UI?

Great multiplatform UI framework doesn't exists currently. Next best thing is to choose a framework that best fits your requirements.

True enough, but is there something less-great? Or not-so-bad?

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#94

Post by voakbasda »

deafpolygon wrote: post #76
bob1029 wrote: post #22

We are huge into Microsoft but MAUI is on the no touch list. After maintaining a Blazor (server-side) app for a few years, it has become clear to me that even if the abstractions are ideal, the tooling may cripple the entire experience. I don't trust Visual Studio 2022 to not treat me like a piece of shit in a UI style project anymore. The only project types I really trust to not suck are: class library, console app,…

What UI framework should I be focusing on in 2023? Should I focus on web-based framework (vis-a-vis Electron or similar platform) or is there something more suitable for desktop UI?

For Go, I just picked up Fyne. Deploys natively on all relevant targets, with a consistent UI across platforms.

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#95

Post by zigzag312 »

deafpolygon wrote: post #93
zigzag312 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great multiplatform UI framework doesn't exists currently. Next best thing is to choose a framework that best fits your requirements.

True enough, but is there something less-great? Or not-so-bad?

What are the requirements?

Single or multiplatform? Which OS?

Will there also be a mobile or web version of an app? Or embedded?

How well does it need to integrate with target platform? How native it must feel? Does it access to native platform features?

Does it need to be lightweight?

Does it need very low latency? Is performance critical?

Does it need many custom widgets or none?

Does it need to have quality implementation of any specific widgets available (like charts, maps etc.)? Big widgets ecosystem?

Does it need heavy widget trees?

Does UI need to be customizable by users?

How important is accessibility?

Programming language preferences and limitations?

How important is developer productivity?

Can framework be proprietary or non-free?

Is it maybe just to learn UI development?

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#96

Post by nvm0n2 »

bob1029 wrote: post #83
deafpolygon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What UI framework should I be focusing on in 2023? Should I focus on web-based framework (vis-a-vis Electron or similar platform) or is there something more suitable for desktop UI?

We do web-only right now. No frameworks. Maybe focus on MDN if you think you can get the business done with a webapp. Once you master flex, grid & friends, you will be set free. If we are still insisting upon native apps, I am growing increasingly-curious as to what the reason could possibly be. Unreal & Unity deploy to the browser. What does your business do that is so special by comparison?

HTML is a bad replacement for a proper UI toolkit, that's the appeal. There are so many problems that good UI toolkits and languages solve that HTML just ignores and always will. But, Chrome gets a massive budget, web apps are easy to deploy thanks to the ubiquity of browsers, and there's safety in numbers, so those things usually outweigh the other concerns. Doesn't change the fact that there is plenty of scope to compete with HTML.

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#97

Post by whynotmaybe »

deafpolygon wrote: post #76
bob1029 wrote: post #22

We are huge into Microsoft but MAUI is on the no touch list. After maintaining a Blazor (server-side) app for a few years, it has become clear to me that even if the abstractions are ideal, the tooling may cripple the entire experience. I don't trust Visual Studio 2022 to not treat me like a piece of shit in a UI style project anymore. The only project types I really trust to not suck are: class library, console app,…

What UI framework should I be focusing on in 2023? Should I focus on web-based framework (vis-a-vis Electron or similar platform) or is there something more suitable for desktop UI?

Check flutter.

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#98

Post by kvonhorn »

> How does this stuff pass QA??????

Microsoft notoriously fired all their QA engineers back in 2014. I would assume that QA is no longer a core competency at Microsoft. I'm guessing that they have testing tasks that are now performed by contractors, but no actual _process_ in place to assure quality. The only engineering process now is agile.

My experience as a QA engineer testing software in agile environments in the last 15 years or so is that my attention every sprint is focused first on assuring that the features implement the user stories, and second that the automated regression tests are written and checked into version control. This automation task is where the majority of my 80 hours every sprint is spent. There is no time to check for bugs by way of, say, ad-hoc testing.

If I'm a contractor, all the buttons are on the screen, and the only issue is that the buttons aren't centered, then I'll enter a bug for the alignment issue as a low priority fix and clear the feature to ship. I might POSSIBLY perhaps maybe add a note to the bug suggesting a workaround by sending an InvalidateRect message to the window containing the buttons, but I doubt it knowing that the developer outside of the team would never read it.

I will absolutely NOT be an advocate for the developer experience and refuse to clear the feature to ship with this bug knowing how tenuous my employment status is, however. I would guess that that's how this bug passes QA in the first place.

Edit: Clarified a few statements.

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#99

Post by Ecstatify »

ratg13 wrote: post #87
LikesPwsh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS don't seem entirely on the same page there. Azure Devops was their first choice for Power BI integration for some reason. https://ideas.fabric.microsoft.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=020078...

Correct, I've only heard this from two people and this is only their take. This is not an official position. But the fact that people within the company are saying this to me directly is enough to get me to believe it. I wouldn't trust a random person on the internet saying stuff like this either, but even without any inside knowledge, it's just logical that they should try and limit time spent developing two of the…

We would have migrated to GitHub, unfortunately it doesn't have the equivalent backlog management that's in Azure DevOps.

Re: Developers are not happy with .NET MAUI, but nobody in the team cares about it

#100

Post by npteljes »

lawgimenez wrote: post #58
npteljes wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Evaluating a decision like this, one needs to look at it from a business perspective, in order to reach the correct conclusion. Looking at it like this, what I cannot see is Microsoft's commitment to this technology. Instead, we see a consistent commitment to an alternative technology, even if historical reasons also take place.

Not long ago someone from Maui posted here about the “momentum” within Microsoft.

I can believe that. I mean, the momentum even. Only time will tell if it really comes to fruition.
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