6 ms·

Just 4 months ago they announced they were suspending development of OneNote Win32 in favor of just the UWP version [1] Moreover, they have (had?) an entire mu

by 013a 8y ago

Just 4 months ago they announced they were suspending development of OneNote Win32 in favor of just the UWP version [1] Moreover, they have (had?) an entire multi-year roadmap planned around UWP, including the eventual release of a version of windows which was supposed to substantially reduce day-to-day reliance on Win32 for lower powered devices, codenamed Project Polaris [2], in an attempt to compete with Chromebook-like devices. This is a massive destruction of confidence in the UWP platform. If Microsoft can't even release their marquee apps on it, why should anyone else feel confident in developing on the platform? [1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/18/17252312/microsoft-office-2019-onenote-windows-10-app https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/18/17252312/microsoft-office... [2] https://www.windowscentral.com/understanding-windows-core-os-and-polaris https://www.windowscentral.com/understanding-windows-core-os...

tomc1985 8y ago
This whole headline feels like deja vu... how many times has Microsoft promoted and then abandoned Windows Mobile?
chris_wot 8y ago
What I find most remarkable is that they are still using Win32!
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Why rewrite a massive code base that works in WPF? That would have been a mistake.
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  Win32 probably is just WinAPI, not necessarily 32-bit application.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Correct. I have never heard the term Win64.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"If Microsoft can't even release their marquee apps on it, why should anyone else feel confident in developing on the platform?" That's why I avoid any kind of Windows desktop development. They release a new framework every 2-3 years and developers are expected to adopt it. But then they drop support for that framework quickly and release a new incompatible one. In the Windows environment choice is bad. You only have bad choices and the frameworks that are being used for flagship apps like Office are not available to devs. I really envy iOS devs where the path to an app is straightforward and your biggest problem is to use ObjectivC or Swift.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Except that's not what Microsoft does at all. The .NET Framework is forward compatible and very rarely breaks compatibility. You can select multiple compilation targets for .NET and have a single piece of code that compiles to multiple frameoworks concurrently. I currently am maintaining a handful of Projects that build Nuget packages compatible with .NET Core, .NET Standard and .NET Framework. If you do have compatibility issues you can easily set preprocessor directives and implement platform specific work arounds just like in C or C++.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    We aren't talking about .NET in general bit about desktop UI frameworks. If you started with ASP.NET MVC years ago you still are on the main platform that's in full development. With desktop development you have several frameworks that are either in support mode or not fully featured.
    - cptskippy 8y ago
      GDI, Win32, and XAML are the only ones that come to mind for me, am I missing some? 3 frameworks in 3 decades seems reasonable considering they all still work. The same can't be said for MacOS If you're referring to Silverlight, that was never a serious desktop UI framework. It was initially targeted as a Flash /Java killer but pivoted to cross platform desktop apps when it became clear that it would never be adopted on Mobile and that Apple/Google were actively trying to kill Flash on the desktop. That being said, we got XAML from Silverlight and it's not terribly difficult to covert ti a XAML or even UWP app from a Silverlight codebase.
cptskippy 8y ago
The UWP version of Office has never really made sense. Office is a massive project and a moving target from a features perspective. It seems like a monumental task to reimplement it from scratch. It makes more sense to gradually rewrite portions of it but that doesn't work well with the annual release model. It does however work with the O365 continuous release model they adapted from Windows 10. Just as they're gradually porting Control Panel and other legacy Win32 apps to the Settings App. I could see them gradually convert Office to modern cross platform frameworks.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  They have been "gradually porting" the control panel since Windows 7... with like three different UI frameworks in its Windows 10 version it's one of the best examples of Microsoft's schizophrenic approach to code updates
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "gradually porting Control Panel and other legacy Win32 apps to the Settings App" They have been porting the control panel since Windows 8 and it's still far from done. How hard can it be to rewrite control panel in UWP?.
  - thrower123 8y ago
    With all the bits that have lived in there since Win95, I suspect it is something of a Lovecraftian horror.
  - tinus_hn 8y ago
    Parts of it are public API with the API specifying the look and even the size of the panels. It’s impossible to rewrite without breaking compatibility.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      Compatibility with what? Do people do UI automation with the control panel?
intern4tional 8y ago
Developing UWP apps is challenging though, it's not a straightforward experience and as a result many people hate it. I don't know if you've ever had to debug a UWP app but compared to almost anything else it's painful. Exceptions don't propagate properly, and finding errors takes a ton of time. Development is likewise painful with elements of random things being required and the packaging and publishing process a nightmare compared to competitors. UWP was made for phone and Microsoft then ported it to Core OS, but as a format it is not developer friendly. If you look at new Microsoft under Satya - and their goal of being developer friendly, this move makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised to see UWP and the current store deprecated entirely (as they are honestly failures).
ClassyJacket 8y ago
>If Microsoft can't even release their marquee apps on it, why should anyone else feel confident in developing on the platform? Endemic at Microsoft. I believe the main reason the Xbox One Kinect - an impressive piece of hardware - failed, is that Microsoft themselves couldn't manage to make one big flagship game for it at launch. If Microsoft themselves are avoiding it, why on earth would third parties invest?
kartickv 8y ago
While it seems ironic and uncoordinated at first glance, perhaps UWP is right for OneNote since it has far fewer features than Word or Excel, and less legacy, being a newer app?

by 013a 8y ago

tomc1985 8y ago

This whole headline feels like deja vu... how many times has Microsoft promoted and then abandoned Windows Mobile?

chris_wot 8y ago

What I find most remarkable is that they are still using Win32!

EpicEng 8y ago
Why rewrite a massive code base that works in WPF? That would have been a mistake.
vbezhenar 8y ago
Win32 probably is just WinAPI, not necessarily 32-bit application.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Correct. I have never heard the term Win64.

maxxxxx 8y ago

"If Microsoft can't even release their marquee apps on it, why should anyone else feel confident in developing on the platform?" That's why I avoid any kind of Windows desktop development. They release a new framework every 2-3 years and developers are expected to adopt it. But then they drop support for that framework quickly and release a new incompatible one. In the Windows environment choice is bad. You only have bad choices and the frameworks that are being used for flagship apps like Office are not available to devs. I really envy iOS devs where the path to an app is straightforward and your biggest problem is to use ObjectivC or Swift.

cptskippy 8y ago
Except that's not what Microsoft does at all. The .NET Framework is forward compatible and very rarely breaks compatibility. You can select multiple compilation targets for .NET and have a single piece of code that compiles to multiple frameoworks concurrently. I currently am maintaining a handful of Projects that build Nuget packages compatible with .NET Core, .NET Standard and .NET Framework. If you do have compatibility issues you can easily set preprocessor directives and implement platform specific work arounds just like in C or C++.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  We aren't talking about .NET in general bit about desktop UI frameworks. If you started with ASP.NET MVC years ago you still are on the main platform that's in full development. With desktop development you have several frameworks that are either in support mode or not fully featured.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    GDI, Win32, and XAML are the only ones that come to mind for me, am I missing some? 3 frameworks in 3 decades seems reasonable considering they all still work. The same can't be said for MacOS If you're referring to Silverlight, that was never a serious desktop UI framework. It was initially targeted as a Flash /Java killer but pivoted to cross platform desktop apps when it became clear that it would never be adopted on Mobile and that Apple/Google were actively trying to kill Flash on the desktop. That being said, we got XAML from Silverlight and it's not terribly difficult to covert ti a XAML or even UWP app from a Silverlight codebase.

cptskippy 8y ago

The UWP version of Office has never really made sense. Office is a massive project and a moving target from a features perspective. It seems like a monumental task to reimplement it from scratch. It makes more sense to gradually rewrite portions of it but that doesn't work well with the annual release model. It does however work with the O365 continuous release model they adapted from Windows 10. Just as they're gradually porting Control Panel and other legacy Win32 apps to the Settings App. I could see them gradually convert Office to modern cross platform frameworks.

tomc1985 8y ago
They have been "gradually porting" the control panel since Windows 7... with like three different UI frameworks in its Windows 10 version it's one of the best examples of Microsoft's schizophrenic approach to code updates
maxxxxx 8y ago
"gradually porting Control Panel and other legacy Win32 apps to the Settings App" They have been porting the control panel since Windows 8 and it's still far from done. How hard can it be to rewrite control panel in UWP?.
- thrower123 8y ago
  With all the bits that have lived in there since Win95, I suspect it is something of a Lovecraftian horror.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  Parts of it are public API with the API specifying the look and even the size of the panels. It’s impossible to rewrite without breaking compatibility.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Compatibility with what? Do people do UI automation with the control panel?

intern4tional 8y ago

Developing UWP apps is challenging though, it's not a straightforward experience and as a result many people hate it. I don't know if you've ever had to debug a UWP app but compared to almost anything else it's painful. Exceptions don't propagate properly, and finding errors takes a ton of time. Development is likewise painful with elements of random things being required and the packaging and publishing process a nightmare compared to competitors. UWP was made for phone and Microsoft then ported it to Core OS, but as a format it is not developer friendly. If you look at new Microsoft under Satya - and their goal of being developer friendly, this move makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised to see UWP and the current store deprecated entirely (as they are honestly failures).

ClassyJacket 8y ago

>If Microsoft can't even release their marquee apps on it, why should anyone else feel confident in developing on the platform? Endemic at Microsoft. I believe the main reason the Xbox One Kinect - an impressive piece of hardware - failed, is that Microsoft themselves couldn't manage to make one big flagship game for it at launch. If Microsoft themselves are avoiding it, why on earth would third parties invest?

kartickv 8y ago

While it seems ironic and uncoordinated at first glance, perhaps UWP is right for OneNote since it has far fewer features than Word or Excel, and less legacy, being a newer app?