When I search “Delphi DirectX”, I only find some Russian website last updated in 2009 and offering Direct3D 10.1 bindings. The newest one is 12, the oldest supported is 11.2.
When I search “Delphi Media Foundation” it’s better, finds bindings updated 4 years ago.
These COM-based technologies are among reasons why I sometimes still pick C++ even for new projects.
Also, in both cases just bindings are not enough, the frameworks are complex, need code samples, stackoverflow community, sometimes books, etc. There’re tons of resources on using these from C++, many from C#, very few for the rest of the languages.
> JavaScript has first class support on UWP
Win32 GDI also has first class support on Win10, just because it’s supported doesn’t mean it will go anywhere. I have doubts MS will continue with that support, they haven’t achieved much and need to do something else, e.g. include CEF in the OS.
> Hardly any different from VBScript.
The difference is that VBScript _is_ COM. All VBScript variables are VARIANT, all strings are VARIANT of VT_BSTR type, and all objects are IDispatch. The interop is not required, COM is already native to the runtime. I can write a COM server in a page long text file with *.wsc extension and VBScript inside, register it with regsvr32.exe, and consume from any language, e.g. `#import "progid:..."` in VC++. I’m not sure you can do same in Python.
Apparently you missed the news regarding PWAs in Windows and its support for native UWP. Again, WinJS got dropped, because it was tied to the Windows 8 programming model, which got improved on Windows 8.1, only to be replaced by UWP on Windows 10.
Win32 GDI actually has "we wish you were all using Win2D and DirectDraw" support on Windows 10.
Here are some examples of automating Excel with Python, http://pbpython.com/windows-com.html, hardly any different from using VBA.
In my first comment I wrote that COM became an essential part of WinAPI. Excel runs on Windows but it’s not Windows. DirectX on the other hand is in OS kernel, mayor parts are dxgkrnl.sys. Same applies to media foundation, Windows shell and clipboard, WMI, and many other OS components.
> which requires writing wrappers by hand, including in .NET, hence Managed DirectX, XNA and SharpDX projects.
Right, and all except SharpDX are first-party i.e. made by MS. MS made even more wrappers, WPF, Direct2D and UWP are also manually written wrappers around D3D 9 or 11.
How many wrappers MS made for Delphi or C++ builder?
> you missed the news regarding PWAs in Windows and its support for native UWP
I’m a bit skeptical about the technology.
> examples of automating Excel with Python
Simple IDispatch not that hard even in pure C. It’s more advanced things that require better support for COM: servers, events-callbacks, data structures like arrays and dictionaries, etc.
JavaScript has first class support on UWP. Of course WinJS is in maintenance BB mode. The future of JavaScript on UWP are PWA apps, with direct access to UWP APIs, no more need for WinJS, which was a Windows 8 library.
Python has supported COM with help from PyWin32 since ages. Hardly any different from VBScript.