But why even use C++ for the front end if it’s going to be .NET? Managed C++ is mostly useful as a shim, not as a platform language. It’s not really an alternat

But why even use C++ for the front end if it’s going to be .NET? Managed C++ is mostly useful as a shim, not as a platform language. It’s not really an alternative to C# on the .NET runtime but just some C++ extensions for interop with it. If you make a WPF/WinForms frontend then that should be the exe entry point, and that would likely be managed. Then your business logic would be the auxiliary DLL (which can be embedded into the managed exe). There could be a layer of C++/CLI between these to layers (C# front end and native backend) because it would make the interop a bit easier than having to do C-style interop.