> The deeper problem is that Microsoft keeps trying to solve GUI consistency at the framework layer
I really don't think that's the fundamental issue.
TFA points out, and I agree, that the fundamental issue is political: competing teams across different divisions coming up with different solutions to solve the same problem that are then all released and pushed in a confusing mishmash of messages.
I haven't written a line of code for a Windows desktop app or extension since early 2014, when the picture was already extremely confusing. I have no idea where I'd begin now.
My choice seems to be either a third party option (like Electron, which is an abomination for a "native" Windows app), or something from Microsoft that feels like it's already deprecated (in rhetoric if not in actuality).
It's a million miles from the in the box development experience of even the late zero years where the correct and current approach was still readily apparent and everything you needed to move forward with development was available from the moment you opened Visual Studio.
There's just so much friction nowadays, starting with the mental load of figuring out the most acceptable/least annoying/most likely still to be supported in 5 - 10 years tech to use for solving the problem.
Honestly, things like Electron are quite literally the problem!
All of people’s modern desktop woes begin and end at the browser. Here’s why: the late 2010’s push into the cloud made JavaScript all-the-rage. A language the creator made in pretty much a weekend coding session.
There naturally is major business incentives powering this. SaaS made things MUCH easier for delivering software.
Fast forward 15 years and MSFT is full in on TypeScript. It’s a disease that starts with MsOffice and percolates to the whole OS (same as what’s happening in copilot).
.Net is actually elegant in many ways. You have PowerShell, VB .Net, C#, F# etc. languages of many paradigms all targeting the same bytecode (and supported by the OS).
And this is being replace by a fun little JavaScript thingy.
That may be how JavaScript started, but unless your claim is that JavaScript hasn't changed at all in the thirty years or so since then, your argument is a complete non-sequitur.
Yeah, thank you. Also, JavaScript today means TypeScript—an arguably extremely capable type system actively developed by Microsoft—and several, modern runtimes with a big standard library and solid asynchronous primitives. There are a lot worse scripting languages out there.
Folks misunderstand the whole point just because I mention TypeScript. Sure it’s a capable and elegant language. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bloated monstrosity on the desktop.
Think about it: it transpiles to JavaScript. Even if it’s the most elegant language in the world doesn’t change the fact that it’s a world of bloat.
Stacks on stacks on stacks. And yet people are complaining about .Net? Come on. Lol
Transpilation and bloat are orthogonal. Javascript being bloated or not is also a relative: consider Python, which is much slower than js, and much more memory hungry.
To further argue your original point: chrome & electron are the only reason desktop is still around, both Microsoft and Apple tried their very hardest to build a walled garden of GUI frameworks, rejecting the very idea of compatibility, good design, and ease of use, until they were surpassed by the web, and particularly Google, showing that delivering functioning applications to a computer does not require gigantic widget libraries, outdated looks or complicated downloads & install processes, but is in fact nothing more than a bit of standardization and a couple MBs of text.
All this electron & web hate is so incredibly misplaced I don't even know where to begin. Have you tried making a cross platform mac/win native app? I have, its like being catapulted into the stone age, but you're asked to build a skyscraper.
Why would transpiling change anything? C++ was once transpiled into C. I appreciate that you personally think JavaScript is poorly designed (I mostly agree!) but that doesn't mean it's slow. V8 can do miracles nowadays.
Doesn’t matter how it changed if every desktop app ships its own browser.
Remember we’re talking about GUIs. Typescript is great for the browser but it should stay there.
Now, JavaScript can be okay for example: Qt Quick/QML it works quite well in the desktop. But that’s purpose-built scripting.