Liam Proven

Microsoft Hasn’t Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold

https://www.jsnover.com/blog/2026/03/13/microsoft-hasnt-had-a-coherent-gui-strategy-since-petzold/

"A 30Y boof-a-rama."

<- This is Jeffrey Snover, creator of Powershell.

Microsoft Hasn’t Had a Coherent GUI Strategy Since Petzold

A few years ago I was in a meeting with developers and someone asked a simple question: “What’s the right framework for a new Windows desktop app?” Dead silence. One person sugges…

Jeffrey Snover's blog
Mar 14 at 12:22pmWeb
Show threadJohn MaxwellMar 14
@lproven Is the modifier "GUI" necessary here?
Show threadgeraldewMar 14

@lproven for my sins I could probably write half the equivalent history of their data API abstractions.

Only half, because my development became stuck in the aspic of being inside of MS Office - and so I never even migrated to using the .Net interfaces (though other people in my org have done) nor what came after.

A small example: with DAO (data access objects?) you would get how many rows were affected, whereas the replacement ADO simply could not, despite both using the same ODBC driver.

Show threadLiam ProvenMar 14

@geraldew

I don't know an emoji for *expression of anguished surprise*

OTOH, _why_ I should be surprised, since I've worked with MS stuff for nearly 40Y now...

Show threadmhdMar 14
@lproven Oh boy, the comments… But it's not wrong. I mean, no one has a decent GUI strategy when it comes to the pure look and feel, but Microsoft combined that with not having one in the API department, either.