React is a javascript library. Javascript needs its own runtime. Why not just write stuff in native windows controls and save having to run an entire javascript runtime for no reason?

> Why not just write stuff in native windows controls and save having to run an entire JavaScript runtime for no reason?

Idk, and I'm not saying it's not a good question, but it's irrelevant to the comparison in OP's comment.

Using an entire javascript runtime and framework to make your OS start menu is using a ridiculous overpowered electric screwdriver that strips heads. Using native windows controls is using a proper manual screwdriver that just works

it's also just a numbers thing. react and more broadly JS developers are a dime-a-dozen as far as availability goes compared to winapi folks.

which on one hand, good -- fuck microsoft and the monolith; on the other hand we get react start menus when we have to use microsoft.

Only someone who has not tried to write stuff in "native windows" would ask this question. If you want a real answer, go try and develop a Windows native application real quick. I'll wait...

I would hope that the windows developers who are working on the windows shell would know how to write a windows native application in C. If it's that bad, they should improve the API, not just write it all in react instead

Windows 7 was not written in react, it looked great and worked great. Get those guys to write the UI for Windows 11.

What parts of Windows was written in React?

I learned Win32 programming from the Petzold book circa 1993.

Pretty much everything in there still works, if I type it in and compile it with the current Visual C/C++ toolchain. I might need to get rid of a few MOVEABLE and DISCARDABLE tags here and there, I suppose.

This is such a ridiculous argument. Applications were developed long before JavaScript was a thing.

.NET Framework needs its own runtime. Java needs its own runtime.

What's the issue?

I have no issue with user-facing applications doing whatever they want, electron apps bundle an entire chromium to do their thing, but there's a win32 and win64 api in C for a reason, to make OS level stuff fast

I wouldn't want my start menu to load the entire Java runtime before opening, that's the issue at hand.

Its popularity or success in other apps has nothing to with the windows situation.

Other apps are successful despite being slow and bloated, since performance isn’t a primary concern of users. In contrast it’s critical for OS internals like the start menu, so a javascript runtime and framework is just the wrong tool for the job.

"Shit tastes great! Millions of flies can't be wrong!" ;)

React only makes sense as a layer on top of the browser DOM, because the DOM itself cannot be fixed without rewriting it from scratch, so making it usable for non-trivial UI needs to happen in the 'framework layer'.

But without the DOM as the thing that needs fixing and the restrictions of the single-threaded browser-event-loop, the React programming model simply doesn't make a lot of sense. Using the "React-paradigm" outside the browser (e.g. SwiftUI, React Native) is pure cargo-culting, it only makes sense for onboarding web-devs who are already familar with React - but makes it harder to create UIs for anybody else.

The actual problem in the context of Win11 is of course that Microsoft doesn't have any sort of longterm strategy for Windows system APIs (not just UI frameworks). The only long-term-stable API is Win32.