The state of Windows programming

Joel on Software has a terrific article about the state of Windows programming. Give it a read.

Unfortunately, these Brave New Strategies, things like .NET and Longhorn and Avalon, trying to create a new API to lock people into, can't work very well if everybody is still using their good-enough computers from 1998. Even if Longhorn ships when it's supposed to, in 2006, which I don't believe for a minute, it will take a couple of years before enough people have it that it's even worth considering as a development platform. Developers, developers, developers, and developers are not buying into Microsoft's multiple-personality-disordered suggestions for how we should develop software.