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How exactly would you develop a native Windows application by doing that? Obviously the main reason to use this is that you need to make a Windows version of s

by doikor 3y ago

How exactly would you develop a native Windows application by doing that? Obviously the main reason to use this is that you need to make a Windows version of some application and don't natively use Windows as your development/testing environment. And these have existed for at least a decade. I remember using one in the early 2010s to debug weird issues with IE.

flkenosad 3y ago
Why would you want to develop a native Windows app in 2024 rather than a cross-platform or browser-based application?
- doikor 3y ago
  Because sometimes you need/want to or someone pays you to? Think any browser, heavy 3d/rendering stuff (Maya, Blender, etc), games/game engines, etc. Even basic streaming/video/music players (Spotify, VLC or even ffmpeg has a Windows port/build that could have platform specific bugs). Also even in the case that the application is mostly just an embedded browser window it can still have platform specific bugs. I would argue the vast majority of native desktop applications are Windows applications just due to its massive marketshare. So in most cases if you are making a native application for desktop you will have to at the very least debug it on Windows sooner or later.
  - flkenosad 3y ago
    > Think any browser, heavy 3d/rendering stuff (Maya, Blender, etc), games/game engines, etc. Yeah dude platform-layer stuff would need to be native. But literally all those things are platforms on top of another platform. They're not applications and we're talking about applications. > Even basic streaming/video/music players (Spotify, VLC or even ffmpeg has a Windows port/build that could have platform specific bugs). Also even in the case that the application is mostly just a an embedded browser window it can still have platform specific bugs. This is not my experience with non-proprietary streaming services. The only reason those need access to the native environment is for DRM reasons. > I would argue the vast majority of native desktop applications are Windows applications just due to its massive marketshare. So in most cases if you are making a native application for desktop you will have to at the very least debug it on Windows sooner or later. This is only due to momentum. I highly doubt this is the future of computing..
    - doikor 3y ago
      > Yeah dude platform-layer stuff would need to be native. But literally all those things are platforms on top of another platform. They're not applications and we're talking about applications. Wait what? Since when is stuff like Blender, VLC, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, DaVinci Resolve, etc not applications? Yes I did list browsers too but they are applications too. Someone has to develop them and fix all the platform specific issues. > This is not my experience with non-proprietary streaming services. The only reason those need access to the native environment is for DRM reasons. So basically now you added a modifier "if you develop open source software then just use linux desktop". > This is only due to momentum. I highly doubt this is the future of computing. Yeah but for the next 10 to 15 years at least we for sure will have Windows around as the dominant native desktop platform. Or are you saying 2024 is finally the "year of Linux desktop"?
- pimterry 3y ago
  I develop a cross-platform application, via Electron. If you think "cross-platform" means "everything will work so consistently that you never even need to test on the most popular desktop platform" then I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you. I use these VMs all the time - they're a pain if you need a serious development environment, but they're great for quickly testing Windows issues & reproducing customer environments.
hasty_pudding 3y ago
Just dont develop OS specific apps. Problem solved.
- olavgg 3y ago
  Agreed, you will do well with either QT or Swing. Or just a web application. However let's say you want to develop a vfs using Dokany, then a windows image is very useful.
  - doikor 3y ago
    Nothing is stopping QT or Swing from having a bug that only happens on Windows (or any other operating system). With web apps if you want a more native look/feel/need more native integarations and decide to use something like Electron you can still have platform specific issues/bugs.
ParetoOptimal 3y ago
Microsoft does enough evil and annoying shit these days I'd put a day or two towards seeing if I could get away with using wine, 2nd option using a VM, 3rd booting up windows partition.

by doikor 3y ago

flkenosad 3y ago

Why would you want to develop a native Windows app in 2024 rather than a cross-platform or browser-based application?

doikor 3y ago
Because sometimes you need/want to or someone pays you to? Think any browser, heavy 3d/rendering stuff (Maya, Blender, etc), games/game engines, etc. Even basic streaming/video/music players (Spotify, VLC or even ffmpeg has a Windows port/build that could have platform specific bugs). Also even in the case that the application is mostly just an embedded browser window it can still have platform specific bugs. I would argue the vast majority of native desktop applications are Windows applications just due to its massive marketshare. So in most cases if you are making a native application for desktop you will have to at the very least debug it on Windows sooner or later.
- flkenosad 3y ago
  > Think any browser, heavy 3d/rendering stuff (Maya, Blender, etc), games/game engines, etc. Yeah dude platform-layer stuff would need to be native. But literally all those things are platforms on top of another platform. They're not applications and we're talking about applications. > Even basic streaming/video/music players (Spotify, VLC or even ffmpeg has a Windows port/build that could have platform specific bugs). Also even in the case that the application is mostly just a an embedded browser window it can still have platform specific bugs. This is not my experience with non-proprietary streaming services. The only reason those need access to the native environment is for DRM reasons. > I would argue the vast majority of native desktop applications are Windows applications just due to its massive marketshare. So in most cases if you are making a native application for desktop you will have to at the very least debug it on Windows sooner or later. This is only due to momentum. I highly doubt this is the future of computing..
  - doikor 3y ago
    > Yeah dude platform-layer stuff would need to be native. But literally all those things are platforms on top of another platform. They're not applications and we're talking about applications. Wait what? Since when is stuff like Blender, VLC, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, DaVinci Resolve, etc not applications? Yes I did list browsers too but they are applications too. Someone has to develop them and fix all the platform specific issues. > This is not my experience with non-proprietary streaming services. The only reason those need access to the native environment is for DRM reasons. So basically now you added a modifier "if you develop open source software then just use linux desktop". > This is only due to momentum. I highly doubt this is the future of computing. Yeah but for the next 10 to 15 years at least we for sure will have Windows around as the dominant native desktop platform. Or are you saying 2024 is finally the "year of Linux desktop"?
pimterry 3y ago
I develop a cross-platform application, via Electron. If you think "cross-platform" means "everything will work so consistently that you never even need to test on the most popular desktop platform" then I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you. I use these VMs all the time - they're a pain if you need a serious development environment, but they're great for quickly testing Windows issues & reproducing customer environments.

hasty_pudding 3y ago

Just dont develop OS specific apps. Problem solved.

olavgg 3y ago
Agreed, you will do well with either QT or Swing. Or just a web application. However let's say you want to develop a vfs using Dokany, then a windows image is very useful.
- doikor 3y ago
  Nothing is stopping QT or Swing from having a bug that only happens on Windows (or any other operating system). With web apps if you want a more native look/feel/need more native integarations and decide to use something like Electron you can still have platform specific issues/bugs.

ParetoOptimal 3y ago

Microsoft does enough evil and annoying shit these days I'd put a day or two towards seeing if I could get away with using wine, 2nd option using a VM, 3rd booting up windows partition.