Re: BridgeWorks

On 8/7/2024 12:37 AM, Gary Sparkes wrote:

WinRT is very much alive and well, being expanded over time, and destined
to replace Win32 entirely for any modern usage.

Almost all my new development makes WinRT calls and consumes a ton of new
APIs. Yes, it is COM based, but it is *so much nicer* and i'm no longer
having to drop into COM/DCOM to control a PTZ camera, for example.
 I'd say that usage of WinRT functionality is *far* more widespread than
you may realize, especially now with Win10 being the baseline minimum of
currently supported OSes, so you don't have to question if it will be
present or not. Along with what I stated above, WinRT API calls have
*greatly* reduced the size of my codebases as well. It's absolutely
painful sometimes when I have to work "before WinRT" and implement things
like IPv6 support in XP applications....

I don't see much future for WinRT.
It never took off market wise. And Microsoft is not putting
resources in it any more.
I believe it was a huge step forward for Windows C++
desktop apps - a nice modern consistent somewhat complete
OO API instead of a big mess created piecemeal over decades.
But:
* Windows C++ desktop apps is turning into a niche
   for new apps
* When Windows Phone was killed then .NET (Xamarin/MAUI)
   "replaced" WinRT as solution for that segment
* Windows Store never took off
Arne