4 ms·

> But since these people aren't idiots, I gladly assume I am missing something. Microsoft politics. Someone who’s aware please confirm but I want to say it’s

> But since these people aren't idiots, I gladly assume I am missing something. Microsoft politics. Someone who’s aware please confirm but I want to say it’s something like… Different orgs jockey for power and you can see when the wrong orgs and initiatives influence different products. What I can’t tell is whether it’s established teams scrambling to stay relevant. Or if it’s new teams and products imposing their influence where they shouldn’t. But the Windows team doesn’t want to see Linux get traction, so they’ll do their part to hamper any OS shims or any native-first functions in Office. The Office org wants to expand beyond Windows but for political reasons, the only add-in tech without platform lock-in is JS so they ally with the Azure/Cloud team to allow third parties to create add-ins. Because of this partnership, rather than making a streamlined add-in store, publishers are required to learn the full complexities of Entra and the Partner centers. I imagine the UX and .NET orgs are caught in similar political battles; but without any direct income or product to influence. If I had to guess, they were in the Windows team at one point; but with the platform-independent initiatives (good) it’s been a shitshow over the past 20+ years for desktop developers (bad).

exceptione 7mo ago
I agree that MS has often internal conflicts of interest. But that still leaves su with the question: why would Avalalonia do the work that MS did not bother to do, where is the benefit? I mean, Avalonia has AvaloniaUI already.
- orthoxerox 7mo ago
  Step 1: "use Avalonia to run your existing MAUI or WPF applications on any platform!" Step 2: "now that your devs have seen how good Avalonia is, why not use it in your future projects directly? It's our core business, so we won't do a regular rug-pull like MS"
pjmlp 7mo ago
.NET belongs to DevDiv, which is under Azure and AI. Notice how many languages DevDiv supports nowadays, see languages dropdown on https://devblogs.microsoft.com https://devblogs.microsoft.com. Thus even .NET has to fight for internal relevance, most Azure contributions to CNCF are in Go and Rust, they even have a "Rust for C#/.NET Developers" (https://microsoft.github.io/rust-for-dotnet-devs/latest https://microsoft.github.io/rust-for-dotnet-devs/latest) tutorial. Azure is also mostly doing Azure Linux nowadays, even if Azure Host OS is still Windows based.
- nobodyandproud 7mo ago
  Oh god. So .NET is just one of many frameworks/platforms? And competing with Azure for attention? Talk about being dwarfed.
  - pjmlp 7mo ago
    .NET finally going cross platform (not counting Mono/Xamarin) wasn't only because some folks at Microsoft felt like it, rather a survival decision to get uptake from newer generations, as UNIX/POSIX settled the server room and headless deployments. Except that outside Windows, .NET is only another option among many. Add to it the way cloud infrastructure key offerings are based on, and Azure wanting to play against Google and AWS for first place, naturally the Azure team isn't that focused on being known as the Windows only cloud, as it used to be on the early days. This naturally plays a role in what programming languages they end up adopting. Parallel to it, note how Microsoft also plays a role in Python based tooling nowadays.
    - exceptione 7mo ago
      > a survival decision Do you know if the .net team had they authority to make that decision, or did they need the backing from the Azure team to persuade the top leadership? > Parallel to it, note how Microsoft also plays a role in Python based tooling nowadays. Yes, I do. I feel MS doesn't even know the distinction between "pragmatic" and "negligent" anymore. The last language they ever should push is that non-typesafe, self undefining, non-optimisable, compute wasting language called Python. I know, shouldn't mention it, programming langues and religion... I am sorry in advance, but I think MS given their PL research accolades should show taste and technical judgement, rather than endless go-with-the-flow pragmatism.
      - pjmlp 7mo ago
        > Do you know if the .net team had they authority to make that decision, or did they need the backing from the Azure team to persuade the top leadership? It all started with the folks that joined ASP.NET team with a FOSS culture, with Damian Edwards and David Fowley being the driving force of those early .NET Core day, JSON solution format (which ended up being dropped), replacing IIS with Kestrel, and so on. Eventually they got the backing from Scott Hanselmann and Scott Guthrie, both Scotts nowadays enjoy a very high management position. If you listen to random interviews of them, at known .NET podcasts like .NET Rocks, Coding After Work, Nick Chapsas, and so forth, they often refer the identity crisis of .NET outside Windows and bringing in new generations, as an ongoing issue. Example, Maddy Montaquilla, the product lead for .NET Aspire, on her Coding After Work interview, from minute 27 until 32:20. https://codingafterwork.com/episodes/26f166e4-0f0f-43d7-8a00-ec62eefdbf2d https://codingafterwork.com/episodes/26f166e4-0f0f-43d7-8a00...

exceptione 7mo ago

I agree that MS has often internal conflicts of interest. But that still leaves su with the question: why would Avalalonia do the work that MS did not bother to do, where is the benefit? I mean, Avalonia has AvaloniaUI already.

orthoxerox 7mo ago
Step 1: "use Avalonia to run your existing MAUI or WPF applications on any platform!" Step 2: "now that your devs have seen how good Avalonia is, why not use it in your future projects directly? It's our core business, so we won't do a regular rug-pull like MS"

pjmlp 7mo ago

.NET belongs to DevDiv, which is under Azure and AI. Notice how many languages DevDiv supports nowadays, see languages dropdown on https://devblogs.microsoft.com https://devblogs.microsoft.com. Thus even .NET has to fight for internal relevance, most Azure contributions to CNCF are in Go and Rust, they even have a "Rust for C#/.NET Developers" (https://microsoft.github.io/rust-for-dotnet-devs/latest https://microsoft.github.io/rust-for-dotnet-devs/latest) tutorial. Azure is also mostly doing Azure Linux nowadays, even if Azure Host OS is still Windows based.

nobodyandproud 7mo ago
Oh god. So .NET is just one of many frameworks/platforms? And competing with Azure for attention? Talk about being dwarfed.
- pjmlp 7mo ago
  .NET finally going cross platform (not counting Mono/Xamarin) wasn't only because some folks at Microsoft felt like it, rather a survival decision to get uptake from newer generations, as UNIX/POSIX settled the server room and headless deployments. Except that outside Windows, .NET is only another option among many. Add to it the way cloud infrastructure key offerings are based on, and Azure wanting to play against Google and AWS for first place, naturally the Azure team isn't that focused on being known as the Windows only cloud, as it used to be on the early days. This naturally plays a role in what programming languages they end up adopting. Parallel to it, note how Microsoft also plays a role in Python based tooling nowadays.
  - exceptione 7mo ago
    > a survival decision Do you know if the .net team had they authority to make that decision, or did they need the backing from the Azure team to persuade the top leadership? > Parallel to it, note how Microsoft also plays a role in Python based tooling nowadays. Yes, I do. I feel MS doesn't even know the distinction between "pragmatic" and "negligent" anymore. The last language they ever should push is that non-typesafe, self undefining, non-optimisable, compute wasting language called Python. I know, shouldn't mention it, programming langues and religion... I am sorry in advance, but I think MS given their PL research accolades should show taste and technical judgement, rather than endless go-with-the-flow pragmatism.
    - pjmlp 7mo ago
      > Do you know if the .net team had they authority to make that decision, or did they need the backing from the Azure team to persuade the top leadership? It all started with the folks that joined ASP.NET team with a FOSS culture, with Damian Edwards and David Fowley being the driving force of those early .NET Core day, JSON solution format (which ended up being dropped), replacing IIS with Kestrel, and so on. Eventually they got the backing from Scott Hanselmann and Scott Guthrie, both Scotts nowadays enjoy a very high management position. If you listen to random interviews of them, at known .NET podcasts like .NET Rocks, Coding After Work, Nick Chapsas, and so forth, they often refer the identity crisis of .NET outside Windows and bringing in new generations, as an ongoing issue. Example, Maddy Montaquilla, the product lead for .NET Aspire, on her Coding After Work interview, from minute 27 until 32:20. https://codingafterwork.com/episodes/26f166e4-0f0f-43d7-8a00-ec62eefdbf2d https://codingafterwork.com/episodes/26f166e4-0f0f-43d7-8a00...