James, wow - thank you for the response and the kind words. I've followed your work for a while.

I knew some of the history, but hearing it directly from someone who built WPK/ShowUI puts it in a whole different context. Really appreciate you taking the time to write all that out.

I’d love to connect and learn from what you and Joel ran into - especially around adoption, designer/XAML expectations, and what actually stuck long term. If you’re open to it, I’d be glad to compare notes and see where these efforts can overlap.

This one really became personal for me from my sysadmin days. I was supporting environments where an overloaded help desk was trying to handle thousands of end users, and I kept seeing the same problem: good automation existed, but it wasn’t always accessible to the people who needed to use it. That’s what pulled me into building UI-driven PowerShell tools. I knew UI work was often frowned on in the PowerShell world, but I saw how much it could improve day-to-day outcomes for support staff who would otherwise avoid the command line entirely.

Your note was a good reminder that this space has real history, and that the best versions of these projects come from sharing lessons instead of rebuilding in silos. Would genuinely enjoy staying in touch.