Working with the Windows App development CLI

"In Vernor Vinge's science fiction novel A Deepness in the Sky, one of the characters works as a software archaeologist, mining thousands of years of code and libraries to find the solutions to development problems. In that fictional far future, every problem has been solved at least once, often in many ways with different interfaces for different languages and processor families."

"Today's software development world isn't quite that complex, as we only have a few decades of programming to build on. Working with a platform as old as Windows, with all its layers and history and all the possible ways to build code on it, we're still left to look for the right SDK and API to use in our toolchains. Microsoft's layers of abstractions try to help, but they can cause confusion and make it hard to migrate code from older frameworks to the state-of-the-art ones for today."

"Microsoft used to only ship new developer bits with new OS releases, slowing progress and making it hard to get the latest features to users. Things began to change with the shift to rolling Windows releases with Windows 10, in the guise of "Windows as a service." The intent was not so much that Microsoft controlled your PCs, but that developers would be able to address the widest possible audience with the latest features, allowing Windows developers to give their users the same experience as on iOS or Android."

Software development benefits from decades of code, but modern Windows development remains complex due to layers, history, and multiple build options. Microsoft's abstraction layers can assist but also confuse and hinder migration from older frameworks to current ones. Those legacy layers make native Windows application development unfashionable because of difficulty finding prerequisites for chosen tools. Historically, Microsoft shipped new developer components only with OS releases, delaying access to features. The move to rolling Windows releases with Windows 10 as 'Windows as a service' aimed to let developers reach a wider audience with the latest features. Microsoft now separates the developer platform from the OS, shipping tools and SDKs on independent schedules.

Read at InfoWorld