That doesn't justify why Managed Direct X, XNA, Silverlight (on WP 7), .NET Native got the axe.
Even the Longhorn failure, which resulted on the "everything COM", that then evolved into WinRT (basically COM + IInspectable + .NET metadata + sandboxing), could have worked out if everyone actually worked together.
I don't believe that if there was actually a willingness from Windows/C++ crowd, they couldn't have helped to push the .NET runtime into improvements similar to .NET Native.
Or to put into another way, the efforts done by Google and Apple improving the Objective-C, Swift and ART, respectively.
In fact, probably the reasoning behind bringing Midori learnings into .NET Core (thus making C# into D like), has more to do with C++/CLI being Windows only, and the managed languages competition outside Windows than anything else.
> could have worked out if everyone actually worked together
Apparently, Sinofsky suffers dreadfully from "not invented here syndrome." He simply does not trust anything that his team has not built, and Midori is the tip of the iceberg. There are a some instances where his attitude worked, but they were far and few between.
You'll notice that there is a very distinct "firewall" between core architecture and "other teams" on the projects he managed, even today (e.g. .Net Office extensions are just COM).
nah, they had Drawbridge running on Midori, which allowed nearly perfect app compat. it really was a case of internal politics as far as I know.
though another way of looking at it is that rewriting the entirety of Windows in Midori would be been a monumental feat, and by the time Satya became CEO it was clear Windows wasn't the future of the company, so that kind of investment didn't make sense.
Maybe, but my recollection from the time (as related to me by Bryan Willman) was that a group of base team architects did an analysis of the .Net runtime and created a list of technical concerns that they felt precluded it's use in any critical component of the OS.
Of course, all of these concerns could presumably have been addressed or mitigated, but by the time analysis was released it was too late
That is exactly my view, instead of addressing the issues, like Apple and Google have been doing the last decade, the decision was to double down on C++ and COM instead.
Back in the day Nokia did road shows to gather employees feedback before going public.
One point regarding Maemo that I and others did, was the missing radio link.
Naturally that was a no go as they would eat into Symbian's turf.
I happened to be in Espoo shortly after the burning platforms memo, and it did not land well, specially since the Qt and PIPS effort was finally gathering some support.
Even the Longhorn failure, which resulted on the "everything COM", that then evolved into WinRT (basically COM + IInspectable + .NET metadata + sandboxing), could have worked out if everyone actually worked together.
I don't believe that if there was actually a willingness from Windows/C++ crowd, they couldn't have helped to push the .NET runtime into improvements similar to .NET Native.
Or to put into another way, the efforts done by Google and Apple improving the Objective-C, Swift and ART, respectively.
In fact, probably the reasoning behind bringing Midori learnings into .NET Core (thus making C# into D like), has more to do with C++/CLI being Windows only, and the managed languages competition outside Windows than anything else.