Comment by GuB-42

3 days ago

Changing UI framework all the times is fine, so is not changing anything for decades. Different strategies that both have value. Reasonably you want to be somewhere in the middle, depending on the use case. In an industrial setting, production infrastructure, etc... you generally want to change as little as possible "if it isn't broken, don't fix it". On emerging, consumer-facing technology such as mobile in the 2000s, "move fast and break things" makes sense.

But anyways, it is not the problem. The problem is just that Microsoft today is doing a terrible job.

The best example, I think, is the control panel. Starting from Windows 8, they changed it. Ok fine, you may like it or hate it, but to be honest, it is not a big deal. The problem is that they never finished their job, more than a decade later! Not all options are available in the new UI, so sometimes the old control panel pops up in a completely different style with many overlaps in features. And every now and then, they shuffle things around in hope that one day, the old control panel won't be needed anymore.

If you make a change, commit to it! If you decide to replace the old control panel, I don't want to see it anymore. It is certainly easier said than done, but if you are a many-billion dollar company and that's your flagship product, you can afford to do hard things!

Using a web engine to build UIs is fine too. As an OS-wide component, a web engine is not that big in terms of resource use, if properly optimized. The problem with Electron is that every app ships with its own engine, so if you have 10 apps, you have 10 engines loaded. But everything uses the same engine, and apps don't abuse it, then the overhead is, I think, almost negligible. It is rare not to have a browser loaded nowadays, so system components can take advantage of this. But again, you need to do it right and it takes skills, effort and resources.