I agree more developers use windows than linux or macos.
But I’m not certain it’s by choice. Few places I’ve worked have allowed, let alone supported, a linux image for the work laptop.
I think most don’t even try, which I don’t blame. I had to essentially put in a business proposal for my work Linux computer.
Absolutely. They usually get asked: “Mac or Windows laptop?” when they join a new company. Even at companies where linux is supported the hiring managers aren’t aware and don’t offer. My last two companies I had to go down a rabbit hole of finding the right team just to ask permission to switch. Let alone the process of switching. On Teams I rarely see fellow linux users, even when I know they use linux on their personal PCs.
Instead, Windows keeps getting web apps, and one developer explained why. After Win32, WinForms, WPF, Silverlight, UWP, and now WinUI, Microsoft first has to convince developers to trust it this time. It’s pushing WinUI, building it in public, and even using AI to write native apps in 30 minutes, while macOS keeps getting a steady flow of native apps.
Unlike macOS, which always gets native apps, despite having a much smaller user base, developers’ attitude toward pushing web apps just for Windows isn’t about convenience. It’s about trust, or rather, the lack of it.
Over the years, Microsoft has introduced multiple “future” frameworks, only to move away from them later. From WPF and Silverlight to UWP and now WinUI 3, the company hasn’t changed this pattern. As Alexander puts it, many developers now assume that whatever Microsoft is pushing today might not last long enough to justify building on it.
Microsoft’s pivot to WebView2 embeds the Edge (Chromium) engine inside apps. It works well for consistency, but it also means many “desktop” apps are just web pages running in a container.
And the obvious downside is that these apps consume more RAM, feel less responsive, and don’t integrate as deeply with the OS. Running multiple Electron apps at the same time can easily eat through system resources, something native apps traditionally handled much better.
So instead of betting on a framework that might change direction again, many choose the web. It’s not perfect, and in many cases, it’s objectively worse for desktop performance. But it removes the bigger risk of depending on Microsoft’s next decision.
Hmm. Yeah, that’s an interesting point.
Linux doesn’t really have that degree of “dead end” things, but it does have a lot of breaking API changes to the widget toolkits, like GTK and Qt, that require maintenance work to keep software written for them building against the current version.
In theory, if you statically compile your app (or use flatpak), it’ll keep working for a long time.
Good shitpost.
Fascinating read about what might have been.
