And then Hejlsberg left for MS and took his toys with him. WinForms bore more than a passing resemblance to VCL, and C# more than a passing resemblance to Delphi/C++ Builder. Good for MS to recognize true talent when they see it.
Though their current API situation is still a mess: they can't stop screwing with it. But their .NET situation is as good as it's ever been.
WinForms was based on J++'s Windows Foundation Classes (WFC), Hejlsberg's first project at Microsoft. Which of course, was based on VCL.
That mess is the usual DevDiv vs WinDev, for example I read somewhere that WinRT was pushed by WinDev, so naturally it is basically COM Runtime reborn.
My major complain was that we only got NGEN for AOT compilation and not something C++ Builder/Delphi like,
Now there are a few ways of doing AOT in .NET, but it is still not like Delphi.
I do miss near-instantaneous builds on late 90's hardware (!). Much of that was Pascal with its single pass compiler. Productivity-wise that was indispensable.
Though their current API situation is still a mess: they can't stop screwing with it. But their .NET situation is as good as it's ever been.