Windows Native App Development Is a Mess
SMRTR summary
Twenty years after falling in love with Windows development as a ten-year-old, a seasoned programmer attempted to build a simple utility app and discovered what he calls "a complete mess." The seemingly straightforward task of creating Display Blackout, a tool to black out monitors during gaming, revealed the chaos of modern Windows development: seven different UI frameworks since Win32, a .NET runtime bloated to 9 megabytes for basic apps, and costly code-signing certificates that make distribution prohibitive.
Half the functionality required dropping down to ancient Win32 APIs through clunky interop tools, defeating the purpose of using Microsoft's "latest and greatest" technologies. Basic features like tray icons and global keyboard shortcuts simply don't exist in the modern Windows App SDK, forcing developers into painful workarounds.
The author discovered that even Microsoft's own apps, from Visual Studio Code to the Start menu, now rely on web technologies instead of native Windows frameworks. After this frustrating journey through Microsoft's fractured development ecosystem, he understands why developers abandon native Windows apps for Electron, despite the web community's complaints about non-native applications.
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to lobste.rs.
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