I notice that's in the past tense. I'm old enough (as in, used Borland Delphi) to remember if you developed small business software, you were almost by definition a windows developer.
But that was a long time ago. Along came Google whose master plan looks to have been to turn the web browser into the business platform of choice. Seemed like insanity at the time. Yet here we are. Browsers have since become masters at playing video, can handle interactive voice, and can talk directly to the GPU. Now Microsoft wants you to use Excel of all things in a a web browser and has dropped the Windows native version of Outlook in favour of the web one packaged as a desktop app. Seems like Google made it's vision work.
I know there are some heavyweight applications out there like video editing and Engineering CAD with finite state analysis that need raw metal performance. But they are few and far between, and aside from them - who is doing Windows native development any more? Certainly not the firms that make accounting packages - the abandoned Windows long ago. For those that are left - are they going to survive the transition to ARM and RISC-V?
POSIX / Linux / BSD / whatever applications - they continue to be as strong as ever. They drive embedded at one end, and the servers at the other. That sort of development is easiest to do on the the target platform, and since it dominates now Windows had to emulate that platform if it wanted to keep the developers. Which is how we got to WSL.
But Windows native app development - that seems like it belongs to a bygone era. Now even Microsoft develops own apps target Electron, not Windows.
> But Windows native app development - that seems like it belongs to a bygone era. Now even Microsoft develops own apps target Electron, not Windows.
I indeed have the impression that some industries (e.g. banking, insurance, development of engineering tools (e.g. CAD applications), PC gaming, ...; observe that at least banking and insurance are two financially quite powerful industries) have a lot more love for the "Microsoft ecosystem" (Windows; in banking and insurance also Microsoft Office) than Microsoft actually does. Thus, in these industries Windows (and Microsoft Office) is used and Windows software is developed despite Microsoft's actions and stance.
Yes, but that's because I moved companies. The bank in question still uses Windows.
> I know there are some heavyweight applications out there like video editing and Engineering CAD with finite state analysis that need raw metal performance.
WASM and WebGL etc (or whatever the newest developments are called these days) are there to make working in the browser faster.
Btw, if you have beefy enough servers, it's not the 'weight' of your application that's the problem, but the latency.
> For those that are left - are they going to survive the transition to ARM and RISC-V?
Just recompile, or use the automatic translation of binaries that comes with your OS.
But that was a long time ago. Along came Google whose master plan looks to have been to turn the web browser into the business platform of choice. Seemed like insanity at the time. Yet here we are. Browsers have since become masters at playing video, can handle interactive voice, and can talk directly to the GPU. Now Microsoft wants you to use Excel of all things in a a web browser and has dropped the Windows native version of Outlook in favour of the web one packaged as a desktop app. Seems like Google made it's vision work.
I know there are some heavyweight applications out there like video editing and Engineering CAD with finite state analysis that need raw metal performance. But they are few and far between, and aside from them - who is doing Windows native development any more? Certainly not the firms that make accounting packages - the abandoned Windows long ago. For those that are left - are they going to survive the transition to ARM and RISC-V?
POSIX / Linux / BSD / whatever applications - they continue to be as strong as ever. They drive embedded at one end, and the servers at the other. That sort of development is easiest to do on the the target platform, and since it dominates now Windows had to emulate that platform if it wanted to keep the developers. Which is how we got to WSL.
But Windows native app development - that seems like it belongs to a bygone era. Now even Microsoft develops own apps target Electron, not Windows.