One could argue the 17 solution summary is actually correct? Why should an os be limited to just one way of doing things. I don’t believe my own words 100% but it is a thought that maybe diversity is the eventual outcome. Ubuntu and MacOS are kinda fighting the same battle. Is that just the way it is?

Not just Windows. If you use an Android smart phone (and it might be just as bad on iPhone I just don't know) you see AI features occupying the last scraps of user interface real estate in the form of edge gestures that half the time get me an unwanted AI overlay UI when I was looking for the app switcher. Steve Jobs is spinning in his grave, and the people who authored the original Mac UI guidelines are cringing. Nobody seems to be willing to say that there's no room at the inn, or that somebody's idea has to get evicted before a new idea can occupy space.

Programming Windows is THE authoritative source on Win32 programming: https://www.charlespetzold.com/books.html

It is a fantastic book, I learned everything I know on Win32 from it. Wrote real time scientific software in windows for ~10y! We did it all, external hardware control, custom UIs, etc. Thanks Ryan Geiss for your timing info.

Right about VC6 was the sweet spot imo, C/C++ with lightning fast UI for docs and more. Tools got out of the way. Once other languages got involved (C#?) the docs got out of control and harder to use, and the UI started to get a little overloaded.

The snappiness of those old windows systems was pretty great.

Reading this was such a trip. I remember "Programming Windows" had to bribe my uncle to buy it for me. I built my first app using it.

An honest accounting of this history has to call out Sinofsky's role, and it's not pretty. He nearly killed the company in pursuit of power, insisting that everything be brought under his control. Who pushed in 2005 that online and search had to be organized under Windows? That was Sinofsky. He forced the engineering team that most needed to move fast onto three‑year product cycles--sheer insanity, and just one of a 1000 bad calls that ultimately contributed to his ouster from Microsoft. And when it came time to plan his own exit from Microsoft, who did Sinofsky turn to? Jeffrey Epstein, of course, because that's what normal people do. Treat everything Sinofsky writes as an attempt to launder his reputation--then add another layer of skepticism on top of that--because Steven Sinofsky does not live in the same moral universe as the people whose careers and products he derailed.

The tl;dr is basically to stay with Win32 and ignore all the new and shiny.

That AI image at the end was more amusing than informative. Almost lost it at "Win15" and "Chrondum + frade.js".

Petzold literally had the Windows logo tattooed on his arm. He was a true believer.

I was recently exploring "an OS from scratch" architecture with ChatGPT. Apart from the central idea that I wanted it to be a capability OS, I also started thinking about how I'd make GUI apps and what layers would naturally make sense.

The cleanest design I came up with works like this:

1. At Layer_1 OS provides panes or windows to which apps can render whatever graphics using OS gpu lib (think Raylib, but maybe a bit simpler). This is good for apps that want performance, games, text editors, things like that - so this is maximum control.

2. Next Layer_2 would be based on the browser engine (which, to some degree, would have to be developer - not a full browser, but just enough to render more or less modern html/css with a DOM-aware JS engine). Then provide some XML schema that would automatically translate into HTML/CSS to render various UI-widgets (defined by XML/HTML elements). This would eventually suggest a JavaScript UI framework on top, but no a requirement. This layer is flexible enough that it uses widgets defined by the system, but allows custom CSS and JavaScript.

3. Layer_3, or more like Layer_2.5 would basically allow custom HTML/CSS without relying on system widgets and XML schema.

Obviously you can mix all three layers into one GUI too. Finally layers (2) and (3) would require some client/server architecture, but instead of shipping it like a webapp, I'd probably provide some JavaScript API to talk to the backend (which in this case is accessible via a socket of some sorts). Apps themselves could still be single binaries that include html/css/js assets which are provided at launch time to the system UI renderer, which then uses them to render the UI via a webview in said pane or window.

I think it's pretty slick and it only gets complicated gradually, but it also requires solid OS plumbing and machinery to make this process smooth. None of the modern systems are capable of it in the way I described it, so people end up shipping nodejs/react apps with webview inside gigabyte-binaries.

While reading all these comments I keep asking myself if these are the same people who would get angry at another Election app because someone was lazy and didn’t make it native.

I think that is an insult to MS Bob