[lowbloodsugar]

Why not DOS? Why not windows 3.1? Well they are too old. win32? Also too old. This is what the .NET complaint is disguising. It's not DOS->3.1->3.11->win32->.NET and so lets just go back one place. It's DOS->3.1->3.11->win32->.NET 1.0->.NET 2.0->.NET 3.0? WPF->.NET 5...->WinUI. Along the way there's COM, DCOM, ActiveX, all sorts of terrible things!

[jamiw]

don't forget gdi+, direct2d, and pretty much every other layer built on win32 that are actively used because they're better than directly interfacing via win32