alt Hacker NewsIgnoring C++ devs on purpose?
Also no one uses WinUI, if that is what you are implying with WinRT, only Microsoft employees on Windows team forced to deal with that clusterfuck framework after Project Reunion pivoted into WinAppSDK.
What do you think Qt, VCL, FireMonkey, ImGui, wxWindgets, JUCE make use of?
What are you talking about? None of it is relevant to the point i am making.
Also you do not need COM to program in C/C++ directly on Windows API since they are all C interfaces anyway. COM is just an architecture you choose to use or not depending upon your needs.
Ever since managed languages/virtual machines became "standard" programming platforms most Windows programmers only write to these. Everything is at such a high-level now that only curious programmers delve deeper into the rabbit-hole.