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Is there some simple summary somewhere about the state of GUI development on Windows? I haven't used Windows seriously for almost a decade now and my understand

Is there some simple summary somewhere about the state of GUI development on Windows? I haven't used Windows seriously for almost a decade now and my understanding was that WPF was mostly dead because it made win32 developers mad so Microsoft buried it and developed UWP and Xamarin and now nobody has a clue what to actually use. But since Windows phone is dead now everybody can go back to just using win32?

maxxxxx 7y ago
My plan is go web as much as possible and maybe Electron :-). Windows desktop is not much fun anymore.
WorldMaker 7y ago
UWP and Xamarin have a lot in common with WPF. The XAML used for UI work is very similar across all three platforms and many of the controls are very similar, if not converging on the exact same. (On the one side, with XAML Islands you can even have UWP XAML inside your WPF XAML or even have UWP XAML inside your Win32 app. On the other side, a lot more of UWP controls are moving to open source up and out of Windows itself in the upcoming WinUI 3.0 library.) Even with Windows phone "dead" and maybe you don't need Xbox or HoloLens or Surface Hub or the best experience on ARM devices, there's still a lot of advantages to UWP for GUIs (or arguably the best, most comfortable, most adaptive experience on Desktop/Tablet). There's also a lot more opportunities for "hybrid" development to migrate Win32 applications a piece at a time (instead of needing to restart form near scratch an entire Win32 application to move towards UWP), so the birds and bees are living together better now and it's no longer a "war" between Win32 and UWP. But the implication is still that all of the energy on making better Windows UI controls and experiences (such as Fluent Design System 2.0+ work) is going into UWP controls and experiences. You can get there slowly from Win32 or start fresh with UWP. If you know UWP, it should be easy enough to use Xamarin for cross-platform UI work on mobile, even with Windows phone "dead".
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Even the React Native for Windows rewrite is built on top of UWP. And from their BUILD talk, I imagine VSCode might eventually move into it, as the team had quite a few React Native vs Electron benchmarks, and was quite keen to describe all Microsoft products that are now making use of React Native.

maxxxxx 7y ago

My plan is go web as much as possible and maybe Electron :-). Windows desktop is not much fun anymore.

WorldMaker 7y ago

UWP and Xamarin have a lot in common with WPF. The XAML used for UI work is very similar across all three platforms and many of the controls are very similar, if not converging on the exact same. (On the one side, with XAML Islands you can even have UWP XAML inside your WPF XAML or even have UWP XAML inside your Win32 app. On the other side, a lot more of UWP controls are moving to open source up and out of Windows itself in the upcoming WinUI 3.0 library.) Even with Windows phone "dead" and maybe you don't need Xbox or HoloLens or Surface Hub or the best experience on ARM devices, there's still a lot of advantages to UWP for GUIs (or arguably the best, most comfortable, most adaptive experience on Desktop/Tablet). There's also a lot more opportunities for "hybrid" development to migrate Win32 applications a piece at a time (instead of needing to restart form near scratch an entire Win32 application to move towards UWP), so the birds and bees are living together better now and it's no longer a "war" between Win32 and UWP. But the implication is still that all of the energy on making better Windows UI controls and experiences (such as Fluent Design System 2.0+ work) is going into UWP controls and experiences. You can get there slowly from Win32 or start fresh with UWP. If you know UWP, it should be easy enough to use Xamarin for cross-platform UI work on mobile, even with Windows phone "dead".

pjmlp 7y ago
Even the React Native for Windows rewrite is built on top of UWP. And from their BUILD talk, I imagine VSCode might eventually move into it, as the team had quite a few React Native vs Electron benchmarks, and was quite keen to describe all Microsoft products that are now making use of React Native.