When I write a program in C++ I am reasonably sure that even in 20 years time I will be able to use the latest and shiniest compiler to compile it.
Not so with Microsoft technologies.
Survivalcraft on Windows Store is a “Windows 8.1 Store App”. I just downloaded Visual Studio 2017RC and lo and behold – you can no longer build Windows 8.1 store apps with it! You need to use old Visual Studio 2015. You can only build “Universal Windows Platform” (aka Windows 10) apps.
This leaves me with two options:
- Keep using VS 2015 and give up all the new shiny features and performance of VS 2017
- Upgrade Survivalcraft project to Universal Windows Platform. This is not an option, because UWP runs only on Windows 10, so Windows 8.1 users would be left out. Plus, UWP will certainly be obsoleted in turn too (as many others before it, vide DirectX SDK, XNA, Windows 8 Apps, Windows 8.1 Apps).
None of these two options is good. What I would like to do is to develop Windows 8.1 apps in the new shiny VS 2017. But, alas, some grand genius business manager up in Seattle rules my and your life. He made a decision and he won’t give us VS 2017. I hate that.
Microsoft has a horrible history of obsoleting technologies for no reason, and suddenly leaving developers out in the cold.
So, back to VS 2015. Oh how I wish a proper open source ecosystem similar to C#/.NET/Visual Studio existed. I would kiss Microsoft goodbye in no time (C# and .NET are kind of open source these days, but Visual Studio is not and will likely never be).
