.NET Projections should not have WinRT types in them

[stevenbrix]

the winrt to .net projections were never implemented fully properly and is really confusing. sometimes you use the regular .NET types, and in other places you use the WinRT version. I think that .net developers should use the APIs they are comfortable and used to using. On top of that, I've heard from customers that it makes code re-use and sharing more difficult.

Any API that uses xLang to project into .NET should use the .NET APIs that already exist, especially those in the System.ComponentModel, System.Collections, and System.IO namespaces.

[jtorjo]

Many thumbs up for System.IO !
I want to use System.IO in my UWP project, since creating file queries using Windows Storage is insanely slow!

Also, see https://docs.microsoft.com/answers/questions/608/please-either-allow-systemio-all-over-hdd-or-drast.html

[stevenbrix]

I want to use System.IO in my UWP project, since creating file queries using Windows Storage is insanely slow!

@jtorjo note that this ask was more around creating a projection layer that properly "hides" the Windows Storage APIs behind a subset of the System.IO APIs, so this wouldn't fix the perf issue. There are other possible solutions, such as defining an xlang interface that is implemented by .NET and UWP, allowing for a single API surface to be used across the different platforms that WinUI is targeting.

This would have to be elegantly done for the file system APIs, since UWP doesn't allow arbitrary file system operations. But I think for things like Streams and collections, this should be relatively straightforward

[jtorjo]

There are other possible solutions, such as defining an xlang interface that is implemented by .NET and UWP, allowing for a single API surface to be used across the different platforms that WinUI is targeting.

@stevenbrix That could probably work. As longs as it's fast, I'll put up with it. Right now, StorageFolder query speeds are beyond horrible.

[Scottj1s]

@stevenbrix - now that we're getting into the type mapping work, can you provide an explicit list of WinRT -> .NET mappings (wrappings) you'd like to see implemented?

[stevenbrix]

@Scottj1s #77 will track this. I think this should be closed as a duplicate, does that sound good?

[Scottj1s]

dupe of #77