Is WPF dead or going to be

Question

I read this article and not sure if its worth learning WPF in case its not used in future - anyone got any thoughts?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/09/microsoft_html_5/ 

Answer 1

I hope not. Ajax is a hack. It was never meant to be doing what we are doing with regards to web apps.

I really like XAML and I find the new thick client controls rich and intuitive.

Answer 2

Be careful what your read on the internet.  Microsft itself heavily uses the WPF technology in their own apps, I can't see it going anywhere.

Answer 3

WPF is not dead. We shipped a strong version 4 in April 2010 and now we are actively working on our next version.
We continue to invest in your success with .NET.

Thanks,
Rob Relyea
Principal Program Manager Lead, WPF Team
http://robrelyea.com/blog | http://twitter.com/rrelyea

Answer 4

@Rob Relyea,

There's some confusion created since Scott Barnes is (according to the story) a former product manager of Silverlight and he points to a big cut on staff and on development work on wpf (maintenance only).  Of course, I don't know if any of that is true or what it means if it is.  Perhaps it means only a shift to silverlight, which may soon reach near (practical) parity with wpf, but I believe he sees a shift to html5 at the expense of wpf/sl.     

 

 

Answer 5

Hi

I wish Microsoft would come out with an official statement .This sounds like the Linq to sql rumor that in the end turned out to be true.

Being a Desktop developer I am seriously concerned as I am putting tremendous effort in learning wpf (MASSIVE learning curve)

I read few blogs where it was saying that the wpf will be only mantained and all the effort will be put on Silverlight. I have to say that the impressions I got from blog posts etc... and many examples being on Silverlight and not WPF is making many people think that is the case.

Again it would not be a problem if it was something easy to learn and master but really requires a lot of time in learning .

Am I wasting my time on wpf??

 

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Thanks for your help

Answer 6

why not?

the WPF and the web-ver ui are 2 different things, eventually they will go under 1 hood, and i bet web is definitely on the favor.

new things died off is nothing new, its part of the IT world, just get used to it.

Answer 7

@devBrix

"Am I wasting my time on wpf??"

I don't believe that you're wasting your time, I also don't believe that WPF is dead.

But even if Microsoft announced that it *was* dead today, it wouldn't matter, as you get to decide when a technology is dead to you, not MS. The tech it's "out-there" now, technology does not die, it's only ever abandoned; see my post here for more info on why I believe this to be the case:  http://compilewith.net/2010/09/wpf-is-dead-long-live-vb3.html

-PJ

Answer 8

Hi Rob,

I develop line of business applications and I use WPF 4 and Silverlight 4.

These are great products.

There is one glaringly obvious omission.

A native xaml based report viewer.

I use winforms or asp.net for report viewer at the moment and I'd much rather be using a native xaml control.

PLEASE can we have a native report viewer.

The users I deal with haven't heard about this paperless office thing.  They want reports and more reports.  They want them now.   They ( and hence I) don't care about accordions or other weird new UI controls.  

Answer 9

@PaulJa

Hi

read your blog and you make sense.I have been in the business for 10 years and I got seriously hurt last time with Linq to Sql as half through the project rumors leaked that Linq to sql was dead and my company ditched the big project and  those skills were gone!! I have not used Linq to Sql for 2 years now.

Now I work in a place where they do wpf big time and I am on a steep learning curve  just to keep up . 

Just worried I have not thrown myself once again in something that will not have commercial future.

I dont have web skills just winforms and now wpf a bit.

I am a bit annoyed and lost track as I was doing lots of extra hours to learn wpf properly but this "rumors" has sort of killed my enthusiasm for wpf.

I will keep going on the wpf route but not as much as I had envisaged.

thanks

 

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Thanks for your help

Answer 10

Here is a great article to read on the subject. http://mtaulty.com/CommunityServer/blogs/mike_taultys_blog/archive/2010/09/10/iphone-4-is-dead.aspx and no its not dead.

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My .NET Blog: http://michaelcrump.net

Answer 11

the lesson, never trust any "promise", be ready for anything.

tech always get replaced or phased out, its just how soon.

Answer 12

The sky is always falling?

IMO, the lesson is not to trust rumours.

Especially very negative ones.  Bias is much more likely to be demonstrated in extreme negativity.

 

@devBrix

Remember that there is quite a lot of carry over between wpf and silverlight.  If you learn one then you're a fair way to learning the other.  So if you learn WPF than that gives you a head start on Silverlight.  That's potentially your route from windows development to web.

Linq is still a useful skill. 

Answer 13

I don't think there is any loss even if MS abondons WPF. You can easily use silverlight if you know WPF and even if MS comes with some other platform in future it will be based on(or similar to) WPF. WPF is different but still its not alien for WinForms devs. and most of the WinForm/ASP.net devs. are working on WPF(and its not that tough to do that).

This is my personal view and looking at the history of MS, I don't think my expertise of WPF will beome useless in a flash. So, I am not worried at all and would suggest you the same.

Change is unevitable so Dont worry be Happy :)

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Cheerio

Answer 14

Can you do full trust apps with Silverlight?

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Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual FoxPro MVP
INETA Regional Speaker
www.craigberntson.com

Answer 15

You can write elevated trust apps with silverlight.

They have to be out of browser and of course there is still quite a number of useful aspects of WPF missing from silverlight.   They didn't just change the name and stuff 33 meg of dll into 6meg.

Answer 16

Kelman,

As the saying goes, constant change is the only constant. But, nowadays, developers have to be very careful about what we spend our time and money on. I've recently spent over a $100 on books plus several weeks of studying to get up to speed with wpf. All the while, clients are saying they want "look" of wpf programs but are questioning the wisdom of spending so much time learning it. Between its steep learning curve and development complexity, I've been having the same thoughts.

Now, after reading this thread, I'm worried. In these times of uncertainty, developers cannot afford to waste our limited resources on dying technologies (not to say wpf is dying). With the current condition of the economy, we need to not only react quickly to change but also to avoid dead ends. It is literally a matter of economic survival. So, you should not be surprised that people are asking these questions. Saying "... just get used to it." doesn't cut it anymore (one more example of change in IT).

Answer 17

"just get used to it" is the best way to deal with uncertainty.

you only can tell 1 tech is died after a time with no longer any vendors/users to promote/use/continue use it.

investment, either as resources to learn thigs, or $, are always part of risk.

there's no guarantee.

what important is what you learn/know now, can it help reap rewards for you for now to next 2-3 years.

you don't or practically have no say-for-sure it will stay good for the next 5-10 years.

as IT software engineer, its part of the process/exp.

if one so afraid of "dying tech", can you named 1 that's not dying?

maybe the C or C++ ? or the Cobol/RPG? probably, in a way

but for m$ tech?

just get used to it, make/change/improve your own adapability to tech change, if your work related to pc tech.

Answer 18

Have you considered going permanent in some large organisation?

Then it's your managers responsibility to worry about which technology you learn and your employer pays for books and courses.

 

 

Answer 19

I don't want to start a war over this (a different thread would be better for this subject). I am saying that "just get used to it" does not address current issues. And, it certainly doesn't address business issues facing independent contractors and small IT consulting firms. When software development businesses recommend using a particular technology we are putting our reputations on the line. What shocked me was the suddenness of this supposed pronouncement of WPF's death. After much thought and consideration, I suggested WPF to a client because I thought that was where MS was headed (hopefully, it still is). 

I admit, I do prefer the more mature WinForms (that's so 20th century) approach because despite its lack of flexibility it has most of the features I need already built into it. If I want a toolbar, I just drag one onto a form; it snaps into place and everything I need to build a typical toolbar is available immediately. Plus, there are tons of custom controls already on the market. I very much dislike having to build toolbars (and everything else) practically from scratch in WPF.

For me and my clients, WPF development is way too slow. Yes, I know flexibility is good but (especially with the small/medium businesses with whom I work) development time is more important. Yet, I made the decision to suggest WPF because I thought it was in my clients' best interests to move them into the 21st century. My comfort with the old technology was less imortant than my clients' future needs. That's how it works in the real world; our clients rely on us to make the best technology decisions for them. I hope my clients don't read the article that suggested WPF is dead or dying or else I'll have some "splainin to do".

It appears that Andy1559 suggested I get a job at a large organization (easier said than done these days) so I can relieve myself of the stress. Frankly, I am quite happy running my own business; my employees count on me to do the right thing for them and the organization. I simply want to be as well informed as possible when I make technology decisions. They tell us when they are starting on a new OS; I hope they will tell us when they are preparing to move on to a WPF replacement. I don't think that is asking too much from technology providers like MS.

More importantly, I am not just talking about myself. Changing technology affects all developers. Yes, we have always had to "just get used to it" and that will not change in the foreseeable. I have a friend who makes a very respectable income maintaining Cobol code for large organizations. I just want a heads up before the technology is tossed on the funeral pyre.

Answer 20

One individual said WPF is dead.

Another said it isn't.

WHy have you decided to be shocked and amazed at it's death but not reassured that this is a false rumour?

 

Answer 21

#rwbogosian: "I suggested WPF to a client because I thought that was where MS was headed (hopefully, it still is)."

I don't think WPF is dead because dead would be the same as not being able to use it but .Net 4 is being pushed out to Windows computers.

But I think that in the past MS was headed in the WPF direction in a car but today it is more like a bicycle ride.

Silverlight on the other hand is on a plane or maybe even a rocket :-) and even though MS is a huge company I think they have/had to decide what technology to develop and here Silverlight won over WPF.

And I agree that we really need some solid statement from MS whether or not WPF is fading away or merging with Silverlight or whatever.

But if WPF developers are scared should Form developers not be more afraid?

Answer 22

MEK_DK, it seems you understand my point; it would be nice if MS made a statement one way or the other.

It is not about the life or death of a technology; it's about whether or not we should be investing time and money on WPF. Responders have mostly discussed what constitutes death of a technology; that's not the point. PaulJa said "if Microsoft announced that it *was* dead today, it wouldn't matter". Developers who have recently spent time and money learning WPF would probably disagree.

There has been little discussion of JamiePattison's original question which began this thread. Jamie asked "if its worth learning WPF". That's the issue; that's the question which needs to be answered.

Answer 23

Andy1559, first of all, I did not use the word "amazed"; perhaps rereading my comments will help clarify them. However, I did use the word shocked. A person does not decide to become shocked (Captain Renault excepted, of course).

I was shocked because something unexpected happened. I had just spent several weeks learning about WPF on forums, msdn, ms wpf sites. I purchased and read books, worked thru example code, and discussed the matter with a client. I made the decision to use WPF in an upcoming project. Until yesterday, I had not seen this thread nor read the above mentioned article. Thus, I was shocked.

I was not reassured that it was a false rumor because I have not seen a firm official statement from MS stating what you have concluded. I certainly hope that it was merely a false rumor. Also, I am not the only one wondering whether it is worth the effort of learning WPF in light of the comments made from various sources. JamiePattison, the original author of this thread, asked "I read this article and not sure if its worth learning WPF in case its not used in future".

Lot's of responders discussed life, death and uncertainty. Little was said about the worth of pursuing a technology with a questionable future and a steep learning curve.

Answer 24

It does not seem to be posted in this thread that Scott Barnes (the guy referred to in the article) replied a few days later:

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/363

Answer 25

Really looking forward to part 2 in of that article!!

Answer 26

As a software engineer working with very tight deadlines, I have come to really appreciate the elegance and sheer power of the WPF framework. WPF has made it possible to make visually stunning applications in a very short time...at the end of the day, if you can make the user say "wow..thats so cool", you feel good as a developer.

I think WPF is one of the most useful pieces of software that Microsoft has provided the developer community. Hence, I really hope that this technology will be around for many more years.

p.s. I also hope that the smart engineers at Microsoft will figure out a way to create a simplified framework for GPU computing.

Answer 27

Scott Barnes has posted part 2 of his article:

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/398

And another article about WPF:

http://www.riagenic.com/archives/404

Answer 28

No need to worry at all,

 Your investments in WPF development for Windows and Silverlight for cross-platform applications are both safe. : By Pete Brown ,author of the Silverlight 4

http://10rem.net/blog/2009/12/01/the-future-of-client-app-dev--wpf-and-silverlight-convergence

So stop worring about WPF and start investing more time in learning rather than this discussion

Hope this helps

Regards,

BHavik

Answer 29

Hi there,

@Rao: not sure why you'd mention a post that's almost a year old. Maybe you wanted to link to Pete Brown's post as of Oct 28th that IMHO provides quote a bit of reassurance regarding WPF as a technology that continues to evolve.

As to several statements I've read throughout this thread, I personally don't understand why or how developers  - that make their living from developing applications - would/could not carefully consider the technology they delve into. Isn't this rather dead simple? The time required for learning a technology is a major investment and (which is especially true for the learning curve associated with WPF/SL) thus couldn't be considered for a (possibly) dying technology.

Now, while I decided to learn WPF around 14 months ago, I still do need to continue with my efforts, so my investment continues to grow. That having been said, if I'd see reliable indications that WPF was dying, I'd dump the whole thing right away, even with all the time I've put into it - better an end with terror than terror without an end!
Remember Linq2Sql? There's absolutely no guarantee that a new and promising technology can't die just like that, even if whoever paid for its development invested a lot of resources. There's probably a ton of people that actually backed the wrong horse there ...

While I see discussions like this one and posts like the one I linked all over the place, I would have actually much appreciated an official (as "in the press or [print-] media") statement by MS with this respect to put an end to this discussion (one way or another). The fact that I haven't seen anything like that until now leaves me thinking MS would rather hush this up, even with posts like Pete's ...

But in the end - and for the time being - I'm still convinced that WPF is a technology that will return my investment.

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Cheers,
Olaf
http://blogs.intuidev.com

Answer 30

Guys, Visual Studio 2010 was written in WPF.  It isn't dead.  Granted, I'm not affiliated with MSFT so this can't be taken as an official statement, but when you consider the investment that the Developer Division at MSFT has made, getting a huge team using a newer technology, you have to feel some reassurance.  It is important to consider that VS2010 isn't a V1 product, so changing the foundation of the application represents a calculated decision by people very high up in the company that have a lot of skin in the game, and brought WPF right in there with them.

Sure, the evolution of the APIs may slow down, but that doesn't mean that the tech is going away.  On one hand, you could view the slow down of changes to WPF APIs as a good thing - it represents stability.  Microsoft has more to do for Silverlight so it isn't surprising that they have shifted some development muscle into that arena (much more competition w/ flash and more constraints due to web environment).

Ultimately, it's your call how much you invest in a technology, but I can say that I've been very happy in the job market with strong WPF skills.

Answer 31

The beauty of computer technology is that it changes so quickly that you always have something new to learn.  WPF, Silverlight, .NET, HTML are fleeting technologies. When you're ready to invest, it pays off. Don't want to restart, keep up, good luck.

Answer 32

the catch is, the "change" keep going on and you keep getting old.

Answer 33

I've been developing in WPF since 2009 and WP4 is really a step forward, it wasn't quite there in VS2008.

The VS2010 IDE is written in WPF, if it was dying that wouldn't have been the case, many people are scratching their heads about moving from winforms to WPF for LOB apps, silverlight is viewed as a tool for browser based development, they will probbaly eventually merge but WPF will be about for ages, it's a steep learning curve but when you get there you can churn out great apps you never could in winforms in half the time. I knocked together a very strong digital signage app in two weeks that supports TV, Video, RSS, Sideshow etc etc, TCP\IP remote automation etc, all a breeze in VS2010 and WPF makes loading dynamic content and lose binding a joy.

The LINQ2SQL saga and the whole EF mess has dented peoples confidence in MS's dev direction which seems to be politicially motivated at times.

I'd say WPF will be around for a long time, I've been writing apps for 15 years for windows from windows 3.1 onwards, I was taken on at my business to help define a new framework for new apps from....VB6, stuff doesn't disappear overnight and large companies investing heavily in WPF aren't going to suddenly go to silverlight. It doesn't work that way. We looked at silverlight and ne need the .NET api, not just a subset.

WPF wasn't there in VS2008 but it pretty much is now and with Sp1 it'll be a great tool, shame about Entity Framework which we're avoiding.

 

Answer 34

What about real world business applications that rely on databases ?  For example, WPF to a SQL server in multi-user environment with say, 50-100 users and the server running hyper-v or third party virtualization software, which many companies seem to be moving to.

It seems WPF would choke as it's very resource intensive and I cannot find a single example of a real world database solution to match the aforementioned, which is a fairly common business application (i.e. accounting, etc.).  For small business, even 10-20 users per se, how does it perform in such an environment?  Does anyone actually know?  After 3 weeks of being able to find absolutely nothing of value, I am very leary of switching our LOB to WPF due to the lack of positive information available. We simply cannot risk moving thousands of end users otherwise to a questionable platform that seems to cater to developers who want to use 'fancy' graphics and the like.

Would love an answer on who has done this successfully if anyone out there has! 

Answer 35

I think your decision to not move to WPF is unquestionably a reasonable one. I agree, it's just not as easy a solution as WinForms for LOB applications, and that it seems more geared for maximum UI sparkle.

WinForms is easier to get a quick and dirty database application coded and out the door. WPF definitely takes more thought, study, and work, and for LOB it probably just won't have a payoff. For other types of applications where user experience comes first, the payoff is probably very significant.

I think if you're coming from the Win32 world, WPF is pretty fantastic, but if you're coming from the WinForms / VB world, it's pretty frustrating.

Answer 36

I think if you're coming from the Win32 world, WPF is pretty fantastic, but if you're coming from the WinForms / VB world, it's pretty frustrating.

I can vouch for the Winforms part.  It is very frustrating that being told WinForms is no longer supported and I am suppose to use a technology that does not feel even close to par.  The xaml files are killing.  The lack of the #region feature makes navigation a pain in the butt for bigger files.  I love how much control I have over the layout and the control inside a control inside a control ect feature.  I have seen some pretty sweet things done in WPF and its a shame it does not get more love from Microsoft.

Answer 37

I disagree with some of these comments. It is much faster to develop a WPF application than an equivalent WinForms application.  My company has successfully developed high powered engineering software where performance is critical.  These applications use multi-threaded simulation of complex mathematical models.  The development time is critical to our success, and WPF has been a huge help in development time.  We have also developed database applications with multi-user support.  The Entity Framework is very powerful and can easily be integrated into a WPF application.  I have experience in both WinForms and WPF, and its is dreadful everytime I have to support any WinForms software after learning WPF. 

Answer 38

The differences between wpf and winforms are in the presentation layers.

Database access performance is identical because you use identical database access methods.

So a 20 user winforms app could and probably would present exactly the same load on a database server as if it was written in wpf.  The wpf app could look a lot cooler and do some things you wouldn't dream of doing in winforms.

I'm not so sure either is really faster than the other to develop in if you're doing plain line of business apps where battleship grey and datagrids are just fine.

If you have a designer and a team of developers then with wpf the designer can tootle with screens at the same time the developers are writing the code for them.  For a largish sort of shop that presents some benefits.  You can have someone writing the commanding parts whilst someone else writes some other logic.  So that can reduce time.  Plus MVVM is well suited to mocking and TDD.  The equivalent would be MVP with winforms.  Few devs do MVP and you need more code.

 

I think if you're learning any new technology then there's frustration whilst you learn the best ways to work with it.

Answer 39

I think no one is wrong here, it just depends on your perspective. My thinking is that WPF scales better with a team of developers (in reference to Andy's comment), but tends to be frustrating for a developer who wants to whip up a quick UI. WinForms seems to be suited for just that scenario, and falls down when you start to need very fine grained behavior out of it, like making list items fancier and more informative.

I've found WPF to be both rewarding and frustrating at the same time. Rewarding, because the system of composition sure beats writing WinForms or ActiveX custom controls hands down. Also rewarding because the data binding system is neato. But, frustrating because it's so hard to figure out how to do basic things sometimes. I've spent a huge amount of time trying to understand why certain triggers and setters don't fire, or why something doesn't align the way it should. (To be fair, I've also spent a great deal of time figuring out why a WinForms app doesn't quite paint correctly.)

Also, it's a lot to expect of developers who need to crank out quick and dirty UI's to learn the framework structure, dependency props, routed events, templates, styles, resource dicts, markup extensions, custom value converters, etc etc etc. Those things are great and necessary facilities, but perhaps need a higher level of visual abstraction for the less involved developer.

 

Answer 40

Okay, all of this fuss made me hesitant whether to learn WPF or not. Can I ask a question? Why did they say that WPF is dying and Silverlight will replace it if Silverlight itself uses WPF. Doesn't it mean that if WPF dies, then Silverlight dies along with it? Sounds ironic to me. I am just a learning student and I am afraid that after learning this technology(WPF), a newer technology has already replaced it. Seriously, I just learned LINQ to SQL yesterday and then found out today that it is dead!!

And about HTML5, I would still prefer Silverlight as I can make applications easier using my favorite language C# and .NET framework. 

Answer 41

Okay, all of this fuss made me hesitant whether to learn WPF or not. Can I ask a question? Why did they say that WPF is dying and Silverlight will replace it if Silverlight itself uses WPF. Doesn't it mean that if WPF dies, then Silverlight dies along with it? Sounds ironic to me. I am just a learning student and I am afraid that after learning this technology(WPF), a newer technology has already replaced it. Seriously, I just learned LINQ to SQL yesterday and then found out today that it is dead!!

And about HTML5, I would still prefer Silverlight as I can make applications easier using my favorite language C# and .NET framework. 

silverlight is more for web thingy. since so many apps nowaday are developed on web platform, most ui are move toward browser based.

with such magnitude of preference, pure win app will likely not favor by dev team, and use web app architecture even for a single standalone win app.

its more like win app is dying, and web app is taking it over.

Answer 42

I would describe it more as a fashion.

Web apps are more fashionable than windows apps at the moment.

There are of course problems when the pesky user wants to do something outside that browser sandbox... So now there's "out of browser" Silverlight for example.

Answer 43

So does that mean that Silverlight will be more powerful than WPF in the future?

Answer 44

Does anyone develop web applications in WPF? Is that part of WPF not a good option or why did Silverlight spring into being as a "separate" technology?

Answer 45

What? Managers? I have never been in an organisation where managers had any clue about IT. Certainly nowhere near what it would take to decide on the WPF vs Silverlight issue. You would be hard pressed to find one who even knew what they were. 

Answer 46

WPF is not dead. We shipped a strong version 4 in April 2010 and now we are actively working on our next version.
We continue to invest in your success with .NET.

Thanks,
Rob Relyea
Principal Program Manager Lead, WPF Team
http://robrelyea.com/blog | http://twitter.com/rrelyea

Hi Rob

Like others this is a particularly relevant question for me especially as I am about to embark upon the development of a web based solution aimed at a global market that will rely heavily on charting for data visualization. I have just spent the last two weeks working with the WPF Toolkit in VS2008 environment. First question is : should I continue? Or should I abandon this effort in favour of SilverLight and/or HTML5? I may be dealing with IE6 also, especially in the middle East, so that rules out Silverlight doesn't it?

Thing is, I am struggling. I am focussing on code behind ie: building charts programatically, rather than XAML coding. My problem is the lack of information available with regards to the DataVisualization framework, the Styles, for example, and Setters. The property names and their corresponding valid values. How do I get the points in a lineseries to line up with the values in a linear axis? That sort of thing.

Where is this information? I am beggared if I can find it on the net. Books tend to focus on XAML.

.Net Framework no problem. Even Android is out there. Where's the WPF info?

Any suggestions?

Cheers

Ray

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answer 47

HTML5 would also be a bit of problem for ie6 mate.

I think I would be inclined to work in Silverlight if an app must be web based.  You can run it on a mac and the framework install is way smaller.

Either way.

I would be inclined to work in xaml first and get something working OK there where I have easy intellisense.  Then translate that to code.  There's also of course the object browser.

If usercontrols were at all practical, I'd be more inclined to go that way than all code behind anyhow.

I would also be much more inclined to use VS2010 than VS2008 for a new project.

Maybe that's of some slight help.

PS

I think such a specific question is probably best asked in a separate thread since this is marked as answered and your question is different from the OP.  If you want further discussion then start another thread rather than hijack this one.

Answer 48

I am very glad to hear that you are working on a new addition of wpf/.net 5.0.  I work at a large organization with hundreds of engineers and I work in Silverlight, XQuery, Java (small amount), winforms and of course WPF.  We have projects in all of them.  By FAR, we can crank out the most powerful applications for our use and external users in WPF.  We get to choose our platforms in most cases and that is my first weapon of choice.

 

Just a suggestion to Microsoft.  You know as well as most of us that these fluff devices are big money right now, but no depth.  In the long run, until the hardware gets smaller, they will all turn back to apps.  We have a bunch of tech devices buyers, and they all bragged about their new ipads, etc.  However, after the first 2 weeks at work, the notebooks were back and we rarely see the pads anymore.  You can't do anything but read the web and email on them in a business world.

 

What we all really need to do is build powerful apps with WPF so people see what they are missing.  We have a bunch of 'smart' GUI tablet oriented systems that are really enable our users to get a hold of the business.

 

Please, please, please, don't give in to the ?-mart syndrom of going for the junko.  Go for systems (tablets) that can still run WPF / powerful stuff.  We are real concerned that windows 8 is going to be limited to the windows 7 phone model.  Silverlight and download store only to install.  Bad call MS if you headed that way.  That will end you for sure.

Answer 49

Silverlight vs. WPF for charting? 

If you can easily distribute your application within your organization as a desktop application, by all means choose WPF.  If you want universal web access via the Silverlight plug-in, then use Silverlight.  Just keep in mind that Silverlight is the very little brother of WPF.  It has extreme restrictions in my opinion.  ASPX has less restrictions than Silverlight.  It does have a mode called out-of-browser, which for the life of me is nothing more than a convienienance method for delivering a crippled desktop application, yes, even when running in OOB SL still has restrictions. 

If you can go with WPF that's the best way to go...  However, keep in mind that there are way more examples for Silverlight Charting than there are for WPF charting.  And yes, the two toolkits ARE different.  There are three charting toolkits out there 1) For Winforms charting 2) For Silverlight and 3) For WPF, they are all different which is astounding but true.

I created a WPF charting article on code project here.  Take a look...  It uses the MVVM pattern and will catapult you into focusing on your application and not the charting component for WPF.

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Javaman, Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 50

Is WPF Dead?  Only MSFT knows but it sure does seem silent out here in programmer land regarding the next release.  Silence is one of the signs of something not happening....

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Javaman, Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 51

From my past experiences with Microsoft technologies like COM, COM+, Windows DNA when MS decided to dump all of it in garbage to make the new baby .Net outshine, which sunk my small business back then; ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP.

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Fahad

Answer 52

Agreed, I don't really care for MSFT's closed mindedness to their own adopters.  We who eat breathe and die to their technology are often left for dead or unsupported.  If we think that .NET is open think again.  For example all .NET programs are sub servants to IE, Explorer and all Office Products.  YOU cannot fully contain these products in your application as they exist on the desktop.... Rather you get crippled functionality called interop which allows you to kind of sort of create cool things.  But if you compare that with what a Web Developer gets, they get it all, because they've decided to run inside the webbrowser.  So they don't have to try to control the webbrowser. 

WPF and .NET have shown they are the most popular pardigm on the planet, but they are NOT first class citizens on the very platform they live.  They are "toys" compared to the power of C++ and even the WIN API, but even then IE, Explorer and Office are all superior to C++ and WIN API layer. 

The only first class citizens on the Windows platform are the Operating System programs and the "special" IE, Explorer, and Office Programs.  Everything else is just a toy.  

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Javaman, Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 53

Would be nice to know who (if any) are taking over from Rob Relyea now that he left the WPF team: http://twitter.com/#!/rrelyea

It was/is Rob Relyea who replied to this thread and I would say that he was the most important WPF figure left.

But I understand that he is changing Kinect/NUI is exciting and getting a lot more attention than WPF. We can hope that it means that the WPF examples in the Kinect SDK will continue. It is very nice to see that WPF is used so much in Kinect examples so far.

Answer 54

Guys, please don't scare me! I barely learned Windows Forms development when I was forced to drop it and start WPF, and I now hear rumours of the end of WPF? How can HTML5 replace WPF - it seems totally inadequate when it comes to desktop applications?! WPF seems such a major investment - for everyone - how can it be dropped after only a few years? But the only guy who appeared to have authoritative opinion on the case - Rob Relyea - is not heading WPF development anymore. Please, somebody step in and reassure us!

Kamen

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Just jumped from VS 2005 SP1 to VS 2010, native C++ and C#, transitioning from 32-bit Windows XP to 64-bit Windows 7; Mountain time zone.

Answer 55

The Xaml team is now split too: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-splits-up-its-xaml-team-whats-the-fallout/9807

I am not saying this is a bad thing because as with all other things in this WPF/Silverlight/Win8 nightmare it is impossible to know since MS is saying nothing.

 

I guess the only thing people can do is postpone their projects (or pick another technology) and wait until the Build conference.

Answer 56

I think it's been obvious for some time that silverlight and wpf are converging.

Eventually there will be one (probably rebadged) tool and you select full .net framework or win8 subset or plug in subset and in browser or out.

XAML is alive and well in Win 8 so your xaml skills are safe.

Who cares whether it's called WPF or Jupiter?

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/06/windows-8-for-software-developers-the-longhorn-dream-reborn.ars

 

Seeing as how they appear to be developing apps for Win 8 using a prototype of VS2012 I would be very surprised if there is no upgrade path.

Answer 57

Great article!  It shows us .NET folks why we've felt this slow-down and of course believe there was a potential sunsetting happening.  Of course MSFT shot themselves by allowing internal bickering and division as well as making the surprizing HTML5 announcements.  At the same time, we .NET folks just need to sit back and see as the "Gag Order" appears to be working well. 

One thing is clear, if MSFT abandons .NET in favor of HTML5 and the absurd Javascript, there will be a revolt.  This is reminiscent of IBM and ISeries, when they abandoned the platform in favor of Unix, but denied they were doing it.  Today IBM's core business is in support and they have a lot of Windows shops they support.  The ISeries was relegated to a big database with lots of network connectivity (to Windows clients)...

I can't wait until September...

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JP

Answer 58

I really like the look of win 8 and the fact it'll run on ARM.

Answer 59

As a developer in a small company, I need some stable (i.e., long-lasting and well-supported) technologies, mostly for UI/UX, but also database access, IPC, etc. We cannot afford to build our own WinAPI-based technologies and have to rely on vendors. Windows being the predominant OS, it is a natural choice, but the developer support has been horrible. Building UI on WinAPI (without libraries) is out of the question; MFC was quite horrible and was dropped pretty quickly; Windows Forms wasn't too bad but was abandoned (with all of its limitations and bugs) in record time; WPF/XAML sounds very promising but it has an immense learning curve and it absolutely must stay - be expanded (both in functionality and documentation) and supported - for a good, long time. And I mean way more than 6-7 years.

The needs of my company are such that I need to employ expert knowledge of a wide range of technologies: native development with low-level WinAPI for super-high performance I/O (yes, near-real-time, on Windows!), inter-process communications, device interfacing and similar, as well as higher-level remote IPC, database access and a rich user interface/experience. We don't have a large team to spread the expertise, so I have to be it all. The core software of our business (which is not a software company but a manufacturer of industrial automation products) requires a very complex set of functionality and I couldn't possibly keep up if I cannot rely on libraries. When there was a bug in MFC, I'd just write my WinAPI workaround. That approach kind of worked with Windows Forms, but I don't see how I'm going to do that with WPF. Not to mention that WPF today, years after its release, feels like Beta software - full of "to do"s and very sparse documentation. If Microsoft is to replace WPF/XAML with something else, they better 1) finish it, and 2) work out all the bugs - and keep supporting it for many more years.

I have no idea how I could use HTML5 and JavaScript for a desktop application that requires serious adaptive/dynamic functionality and user interaction with a heavy back-end. Is Microsoft thinking of running all applications in a browser? Do we sacrifice everything for the need to make portable devices replace desktop computers one day? How about instead of making everything be compatible with a cell phone platform, we leave the high-performance desktop world alone?

I realize that, quantitatively, the vast majority of software today is quick-and-dirty Internet apps (even the name is short!) that are slapped together hastily by developers with relatively limited skills, and where bugs are widely tolerated. Well, I'm in a position that couldn't be further from this arrangement and I feel left out. For one, a bug in our software is a disaster (quite literally - someone could get killed). Are developers like me going to be the "collateral damage" in the greedy business wars that are ravaging the world economies? I certainly hope not...

Kamen

 

 

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Just jumped from VS 2005 SP1 to VS 2010, native C++ and C#, transitioning from 32-bit Windows XP to 64-bit Windows 7; Mountain time zone.

 

Answer 60

Now that the Build conference has passed and the attendees have had the chance to look at the provided resources and, hopefully, spread the knowledge, what is the new take on this topic? Initial impressions suggest that WPF is not dead but will it really be alive, that is, will we see new and improved versions of the libraries, decent support in the Visual Studio designer, etc.? How well supported will WPF applications be in Windows 8, that is, will moving it to Jupiter or WinRT (whatever those will be) make things any different as far as robustness, performance, etc.? Do we have any clarity yet?

Kamen

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Currently using Visual Studio 2010, native C++ (Windows API) and C# (.Net, WPF), on Windows 7 64-bit; Mountain Time zone.

Answer 61

I think that businesses will be using the "classic" aspect of Win8.  So for them, Win8 on a desktop will be pretty much Win7.

Some people will be buying slates and presumably a lot of the consumer targetted slates will be ARM based.

It seems unlikely WPF will work on these.

So apps will be html5 and css for simple stuff and a HTML5 widget linking to .Net and XAML for more serious apps.

If you're thinking of doing serious business apps for a slate then you'll need to morph your skillset somewhat.

 

XAML and .Net are alive and will live on beyond Win 8.

Quite what fancy name you'll be calling the flavour you're working with in 10 years is less clear.

 

Answer 62

I think that businesses will be using the "classic" aspect of Win8.  So for them, Win8 on a desktop will be pretty much Win7.

Some people will be buying slates and presumably a lot of the consumer targetted slates will be ARM based.

It seems unlikely WPF will work on these.

So apps will be html5 and css for simple stuff and a HTML5 widget linking to .Net and XAML for more serious apps.

If you're thinking of doing serious business apps for a slate then you'll need to morph your skillset somewhat.

 

XAML and .Net are alive and will live on beyond Win 8.

Quite what fancy name you'll be calling the flavour you're working with in 10 years is less clear.

 

+1.

LOL wonder where that MS guy Rob who posted above is now...

WPF is now a legacy technology along with WinForms and will not be enhanced any further - it is only supported in Windows 8 for backwards compatibility.

Your best bet is to learn HTML5 and build rich "User Experiences" using web technologies so you can span across platforms and devices.

Metro will lock you into one style of application development for one platform just like iPad development, but unlike Apple, MS have not been nor will be consistent in their technical direction or user interfaces for each of their platforms.

If you are running a business with software products that have many users you cannot just rewrite your interface completely without significant cost and risk of alienation of users and in turn customers.

We cannot bet our careers or businesses on inconsistency or flakiness - it's just too risky. Though the flip side is that hobbyist / junior programmers / former milkmen will be happy to have the latest MS reincarnations on their CVs.

Stay positive :)

Answer 63

hi,

Despite wpf...

HTML 5 and other language is dead.

Answer 64

I'm not so sure WPF is legacy technology.

Very few businesses will be using metro on desktops.

So the best solution for desktop LoB applications will be wpf or Silverlight OOB for some time.

Unless they bring out some new product which uses Xaml and .Net.

Unifying WPF and Silverlight would make sense and then both would be legacy but replaced by wonderlight or whatever they call it.

 

IMO  "your best bet" is only HTML5 if you intend writing widgets for consumer targetted slates.

HTML5 is never going to be a patch on wpf or silverlight for LoB.

In the real business world, it doesn't matter if an application only works on windows.

Almost all businesses who will pay for programmes use windows.

Answer 65

+1.

LOL wonder where that MS guy Rob who posted above is now...

Rob Relyea left the WPF team some time ago maybe 5 months ago. He is in the Kinect SDK team now. I have not been able to find out whether or not anyone has replaced him.

 

Andy ONeill you should really secure that Wonderlight name that would be a brilliant name for a merge of WPF and Silverlight :-)

Answer 66

Is there anyone who has actually been to Build? I've read a lot of second- and third-hand accounts that are so contradictory, I'm starting to wonder if even Microsoft has a clear idea of what will be happening in the not-so-near future.

Kamen

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Currently using Visual Studio 2010, native C++ (Windows API) and C# (.Net, WPF), on Windows 7 64-bit; Mountain Time zone.

Answer 67

The reason why the "Death of WPF" is so confusing is because MS has not killed it.  What they have done is given up on the Enterprise Developer (at least for the most part).

They are developing mobile and desktop APIs for Consumer Developers.

The evidence of this is is plentiful. 

Windows Phone 7 "replaced" Windows Mobile 6.

Windows Phone 7 has no support for enterprise applications.  The first and fore most missing feature is the ability to add a bar code scanner.  Because you cannot access the native api, you are limited to the kind of consumer app that Windows Phone 7 was made for.

Silverlight "replaced" by HTML 5

At first there was some hope that Silverlight would not be abandoned.  It would just move to the phone.  But (from what I recall reading) Mango will not use silverlight as a primary programming languange.  

Fortunately for Enterprise users, HTML 5 can do most of what Silverlight can.  But the hope of using your XAML for both Desktop and Web Apps is now dashed with this.

WPF "replaced" with Metro

This is the really disappointing one for desktop developers.  Metro UI is just not an enterprise friendly UI.  It is made for consumer based apps with lots of free real estate on the UI.  No overlapping windows, etc...  Any kind of real data entry app would fall flat on its face in a Metro UI.

MS has decided to go for the two birds in the bush.  They dropped the Enterprise Developer bird to try and catch the elusive Consumer Developer Birds.  I wish them luck, but as an Enterprise developer I am frustrated by their decisions.

Anyway, this is why it is confusing as to what technologies are "Dead".  Because the APIs that are replacing the dead technologies only really are a valid replacement for the Consumer Developer.  Enterprise Developers just have not yet caught on that they were left behind.

Answer 68

Talking more about Metro; Metro apps are written on top of the WinRT. This means you don't need to call into the old Win32 API for access to OS-layer. WinRT is a user-friendly API that can be tapped into using C/C++, C#/VB, JavaScript. XAML is now the UI layer, but the backend can be true native C/C++ talking directly to a nicely wrapped WinRT API that talks to the OS directly... no marshalling needed for Metro Apps... So, as a .Net developer myself, someone who has spent the last 5+ years investing time in WPF, it seems C/C++ may make a comeback in the desktop small application/metro field. Why would someone want a .Net app when native C/C++ code that possibly (most likely) executes faster can exist instead? At least I learned XAML along the way.

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My educational lectures on C# and .Net in general (ranging from beginner level topics to advanced topics): mariocatch.wordpress.com

Answer 69

Personally, I can't see most users in most businesses using metro any time soon.  At least not on their main computer.

I also think there are good reasons for using the .Net framework, which hold even for small applications.

Maybe particularly so.

It's still going to be quicker (and usually easier) to write something in C# than C++.

 

Answer 70

Thank the good Lord for getting rid of the Win32 API as most C# and VB.NET developers would agree.  I can't imagine for one second that MSFT would not give C# and VB.NET  at least the same or even more access to the WINRT layer than Javascript.  As far as Silverlight's death, IMO that's great because if you were a WPF developer and tried to do the same things in Silverlight you were in for a very rude awakening.  Silverlight to me was the bastard child that was handicapped by Browser restrictions and alternative-class level function not found in WPF or done differently.  That was untenable to those from WPF land.

Javascript won the DOM war (unfortunately), but it should take first class citizenship there.  That means that all things DOM should and rightfully so, belong to Javascript.  Not even MSFT could provide a complete Browser wrapper for C# and VB.NET folks in the 10 years we've been screaming for the complete monty.  But they've always had the native MSHTML APIs. So lets just get over it and start studying Javascript, as it will be a career skill.  MSFT should kill JSCRIPT too.  If MSFT were to tell us "Oh yes and BTW to use all of WINRT you have to use JScript"  we would know that this is dangerous.  I can't imaging them doing that after ceding to Javascript's dominance.

If WinRT is the common API for all languages then I don't see how there is any distinction on Enterprise apps. vs. consumer apps.  It's just a matter of choosing the language that suits you.  The only way this would become an issue were if MSFT does like they did to Silverlight and WPF, create cousins, instead of brothers.  There cannot be any variations for the WINRT interface, none, nada, zilch...  It must remain consitent accross all language barriers only differing in HOW the language uses it.  If this is done we will actually have a better model.  Only time will tell.

Is WPF Dead, no!  Will it die?  Can't imagine that, but it's possible.  Even if it does die remember this:  There are still COBOL programmers writing new code today!

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 71

How about all those of us in industrial areas, where we need to create high-performance (low-latency, low-jitter, I/O access, etc.) software ? Is Microsoft telling us to switch to Linux? I'm sill able to use hardware timing (HRPC), shared memory (file-mapping), synchronization mechanisms, and other technologies via the OS API, but is that going to be feasible with Windows 8?

Kamen

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Currently using Visual Studio 2010 SP1, native C++ (Windows API) and C# (.Net, WPF), on Windows 7 64-bit; Mountain Time zone.

Answer 72

MSFT will say C++ for real time.  You don't need Linux for that.  Besides C++ works in LINUX too right?  :)  I don't think they'll do away with any existing API's.  This is probably the reason that Windows 8 roll out date is so far out.  They have a ton of work to do.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 73

Javaman, what does the programming language have to do with anything here? I'm talking about the libraries that are available to programmers to access functionality in the OS. If it is true that the Windows API will be inaccessible in favor of WinRT, and the latter does not offer the solutions needed for industrial applications (like some technologies I listed above), then how is one supposed to make it happen? Actually, it is all about the OS itself - if the OS doesn't support the functionality needed to use those technologies, then there will not be any API to use them as they are simply not there. If Windows 8 has a different kernel, or the functionality in that new kernel is not accessible, then nothing will help in trying to use those high-performance techniques.

This started as a worry about the UI part but it might be a lot worse - it could mean Windows as an OS could become useless for industrial applications. Windows 7 is going to do the job for me for a while but I don't want to be stuck with it forever. I really need to look into all that.

Kamen

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Currently using Visual Studio 2010 SP1, native C++ (Windows API) and C# (.Net, WPF), on Windows 7 64-bit; Mountain Time zone.

Answer 74

I don't believe that the Windows APIs will be forgotten in WINRT. They must support legacy things either through same interface or new one.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 75

Hi,

Since WPF is not dead but I have require some insights and clarifications.

In mobile, can WPF be fully supported by models running on OS like iPhone, Android, Symbian?

Correct me if I'm wrong, is HTML5 rival to WPF on the web?

I know that HTML5 is going stronger and stronger and more and more popular web browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari) are trying to get more and more HTML5 features to be supported. But what about WPF? Can these browses too view WPF websites without any flaw?

Answer 76

Hi Fblover2011

I think you are talking about Silverlight and not WPF and in that case you can find info here: http://www.silverlight.net/

WPF does not run on mobiles, maybe someone has made somekind of hack to make it run but there is no official support for it.

On the web WPF is not a rival to anyone because it was not really intended to run on the web. WPF can with some limitations run in a browser but the focus area for WPF has always been windows applications.

Answer 77

Silverlight and HTML5 aren't competitors.

Silverlight and WPF are for business applications, HTML for web sites.

The reason you would use either is because they are better than HTML5 at what they do.  The reason you would use HTML is because it'll work on any device with a browser.  Not all features of HTML5 are implemented on all browsers by the way.  HTML and Javascript are inherently inferior to XAML and .Net in all ways other than the breadth of devices covered.

Answer 78

I'm not sure what response you expected to get on a Microsoft forum.  I don't know if WPF is dead or not, but you're going to hear the party line around here.  I think it probably is dead, and for good reason.  It makes things that should be simple hard, and that is a sure way to fail.  It has some nice ideas, it definitely allows you to create some very rich UI's, but it's implementation is overly complex and just hard to work with in practice.  I worked on a WPF project for six months and I would never recommend that my company make that mistake again.

XAML?  You have to hand write it to get something that's even remotely maintainable and it is completely undiscoverable.  Errors that used to be caught at compile time are now runtime errors (most of the time things just silently fail).  Property names as strings, dynamic typing, poor editor support... yuck.  Give me WinForms any day over this.  Want to handle mouse events?  Well that just got a lot more complicated, so you had better have a good reference book lying around.  Want to change the default look of a control?  Copy the whole darn template in and start making changes.  Again, yuck.

It makes things that used to be hard easier, but at the same time makes things that used to be simple orders of magnitude more difficult.  Look, if you had asked if Linq2SQL was dead in these forums a few years back they would have told you no.  Well how did that turn out? 

Answer 79

Hi Andy,

So in simple words, WPF is meant to use when we are writing windows (form) applications whereas silverlight can be used for both windows and web applications, right?

If my web application or website application needs to reach at wider audience who use various platforms ranging from normal browsers (chrome, firefox, safari, opera, IE, etc) to mobile devices (windows phone, android phone, symbian phones, iPhones/iPod/iPad, Blackberry, etc), would HTML be a better choice than Silverlight?

Should this be the case, then Silverlight apps/sites audience would probably lesser compared to an app/site that can reach more people.

What's do you think? (open to anyone)

Answer 80

Hi FbLover2011

I think you should post your Silverlight question in the Silverlight forum instead: http://forums.silverlight.net/

If we start the Silverlight dead/alive debate here as well the thread will be a mess :-)

The WPF part of your question should of course be answered.
In short yes WPF is for windows applications. WPF can run in a browser in the form of an xbap but the use of that is in my opinion very limited (you also do not have the full feature set of WPF when running in a browser).

Answer 81

Yes.

If you really want to join in the chanting:

Silverlight is dead,

Silverlight is dead,

Silverlight is Dead

etc

ad infinitum

Then I think you should at least post in a forum which is appropriate to Silverlight.

Over here, what do I think?

I think you should develop in WPF.

It's a great way to develop windows applications.

Answer 82

Ed's comments on WPF are correct for a newbie.  It's a steep learning curve even for those of us that came from WinForms.  However, what Ed doesn't realize yet, is that the XAML world is much more easy to tweak than the CSS world.  I for one, avoid CSS with a passion because to me, WPF and XAML is so much better.  Besides they are really for two different things.  WPF is not dead and it won't die.  It it dies, then all desktop applications will have to be converted either to 1)Winforms or 2) HTML.  That is intolerable to us MSFT adopters and about a 20 year step backwards.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 83

Ed's comments on WPF were my thoughts few years ago, when they told me that WinForms was old-fashion and WPF was the new deal. Then I took a look at WPF and what I found out was that WPF and XAML were too hard to learn. I mean, where were all the simple properties from controls, like Rows in DataGrid (Rows.Add(...))... I typed '.' (dot) in a DataGrid instance and an infinite possibility of properties were shown and none of them was Rows... and there were soooo many properties. Back then I just gave up; will it worth learn all that?

Now I realize how AWESOME WPF is! It's just that: AWESOME!

I had to read, read and read how things work in WPF, the databinding, styles, attached properties, XAML, and when you learn those things you look at WPF and see a beautifull designed framework. Things make sense, it is not random.

Then I had to write code, lots of them. WinForms never more... it is just ugly. Drag and drop controls from toolbox, well, you could do that in WPF, but why? Flexible layouts using Grid it's not hard to code... it's fairly simple.

Answer 84

I completely agree that the learning curve is steep but, once mastered, you can create some really cool UI's with WPF.  This does not change the fact that things which used to be simple have become much harder than they need to be.  Now, I am a systems guy, I am not a UI guy buy trade.  I appreciated the relative simplicity of WinForms.  I believe that a better UI framework would be somewhere in between the two in terms of complexity.

Answer 85

 Then I had to write code, lots of them. WinForms never more... it is just ugly. Drag and drop controls from toolbox, well, you could do that in WPF, but why? Flexible layouts using Grid it's not hard to code... it's fairly simple.

Yes, hand writing XAML is oh so much better than writing code... and "why would we want drag a drop control editor?"  Really, why would one prefer that to hand writing pages and pages of XML?  I don't understand.

 

Answer 86

Flexible layouts won't magically create themselves, in any language you choose. You have to take an effort and write code. HTML/CSS is that way. RubyOnRails MVC, Asp.net MVC, I don't see anybody using an IDE to drag-drop controls and after say: that's it, that's my HTML page. Doesn't work like that; they write code.

Now if you don't mind or your application doesn't require flexible layout, you might as well just drag-drop the controls and use absolute position.

WinForms has a control that acts like a WPF Grid called TableLayoutPanel. I've rarely seen people using it, but I used it a lot. You could drag-drop controls in it, but once you dock the TableLayoutPanel to fill its parent, the drag-drop stopped to work; it was an annoying bug. You had to un-dock the control or change the .designer.cs file. All in all it was a nice way to build flexible layout in WinForms. Nevertheless, WPF is much more than that. :D

Answer 87

I used to be a winforms developer and I now prefer wpf.

I don't follow some of Ed's points.

If you want to change the default look of a winforms control, Afaik you just can't.  Unle this is simply setting a default property.  In wpf you don't need to copy the whole template to set a property.

Binding failing silently is a plus.  But it doesn't actually fail silently if you run in debug mode - so you can see which bindings fail.

Answer 88

If you are hand writing XAML and not using Expression Blend then you have not learned how to develop WPF. The designer is a powerful tool and fast. There are times you want to tweak XAML in code but not design.

Answer 89

If you are hand writing XAML and not using Expression Blend then you have not learned how to develop WPF. The designer is a powerful tool and fast. There are times you want to tweak XAML in code but not design.

Disagree.  If someone isn't using a design tool, they can't develop WPF?  I can show some very rich UIs that can prove otherwise.  I don't care to use blend, as it's quicker for me to just write the XAML.  I can see Blend as a good tool, but not for me and certainly not required.

Answer 90

The last few posts kind of summarize my concern: first, while WPF may or may not be dead, WinForms has undoubtedly been dead for a long time, and we don't really have an alternative - can HTML5/JS come close to having the functionality needed for rich, flexible desktop applications? Using GDI to do UI (like we did in the '90s) was a major pain; when MFC came it felt like a solution but MS dropped it before they had made it usable (they didn't even work the major bugs out). Then, WinForms came and it had good promise, but only because of the fact that it integrated with the .Net framework. MS stopped developing WinForms before it had a chance. All right, WPF/XAML seems like a great solution - extremely powerful and flexible; all you need to have it perfect is finish it: clean it out, add a bunch more components (to save us from writing the simplest UI elements ourselves), and add some nifty design tools (for whenever we don't have time to go deep) and some powerful debugging tools (although, I don't really know how you debug declarative code?)

That's all I'm saying - don't let WPF die, keep working on it and make it the MS foundation for desktop UI development. Work all you want on Metro/WWW technologies for the fancy tablets and phones, but don't abandon the software's "heavy industry".

Kamen

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Currently using Visual Studio 2010 SP1, native C++ (Windows API) and C# (.Net, WPF), on Windows 7 64-bit; Mountain Time zone.

Answer 91

On 4/11/2012 9:07 PM, Ed Swangren wrote:

> I'm not sure what response you expected to get on a Microsoft forum. I

> don't know if WPF is dead or not, but you're going to hear the party

> line around here. I think it probably is dead, and for good reason. It

> makes things that should be simple hard, and that is a sure way to fail.

> It has some nice ideas, it definitely allows you to create some very

> rich UI's, but it's implementation is overly complex and just hard to

> work with in practice. I worked on a WPF project for six months and I

> would never recommend that my company make that mistake again.

>

> XAML? You have to hand write it to get something that's even remotely

> maintainable and it is completely undiscoverable. Errors that used to be

> caught at compile time are now runtime errors (most of the time things

> just silently fail). Property names as strings, dynamic typing, poor

> editor support... yuck. Give me WinForms any day over this. Want to

> handle mouse events? Well that just got a lot more complicated, so you

> had better have a good reference book lying around. Want to change the

> default look of a control? Copy the whole darn template in and start

> making changes. Again, yuck.

>

> It makes things that used to be hard easier, but at the same time makes

> things that used to be simple orders of magnitude more difficult. Look,

> if you had asked if Linq2SQL was dead in these forums a few years back

> they would have told you no. Well how did that turn out?

>

 

WPF, MVVM and XAML have a place in today's environment, and it's not

going away anytime soon. Windows forms and MVP have a place in today's

environment and they are not going away anytime soon.

 

Both technologies are very powerful in the right hands in using a UI

design pattern such as MVVM or MVP, keeping the UI as dumb as possible

and unit testing of the Modelview for WPF and the Presenter of MVP.

 

At least with MVVM, it's being shown that there is a UI design pattern,

and developers have a clue about MVVM and WPF, but on the other hand, a

vast majority of Windows form developers have no clue about MVP, and

they continue to slam it all in the UI.

 

I don't see Linq-2-SQL is dead. It is not as popular as its big brother

ADO.NET Entity Framework, but it's not dead. What should die is datasets

and datatables with both being outdated technology and used as crutches

by developers that refuse or they cannot move forward.

 

Answer 92

Come @Rob Relyea, Microsoft has a long history of rotting corpses with deserted technologies. I've done a lot of different things, but while my Java knowledge from ten years ago is still valuable, my C++ and MFC knowledge is gone with the dogs. Or how you'd would say that in English?

To be short, I need more hard prove to believe the statement you are giving me.

Answer 93

Ok, I have only been studying WPF for a week now, but this is my opinion.

If you want to change the UI and keep the logic of the rest of the application, you have to separate your UI code from the rest of your program. This can be done without WPF. This was the first bit of nonsense I read starting to study WPF. Separation of UI and Business logic is about 30 years old. It can be done in WinForms, it can be done in MFC it can be done in Delphi, it can be done in Java, even in Cobol. It's how you design your software, not which tool you use. May-be WPF makes it a little easier, but that is all, I think. How you logically design your modules is more important than the tools you use. How you logically implement your program is more important than the programming language you use. How you logically divide your application in steps a user understands, and the structured way you present your information, is more important than the 'cool new' look and spinning, jumping and moving object you can implement with the new tools from WPF. That latter was the most irritating thing I read about WPF. I know so many application where mindless nerds have implemented 'cool' totally useless GUI bling bling, while the user has to guess where he/she can find the information he/she is looking for. And 'yippie yippie', more of this bling bling is now possible with WPF. How cool...

WPF does not bring anything essentially new. For what I have read, it has steep learning curve. Moving compile errors to run time errors, that is deadly! If you want to study something new, and you are a desktop WinForm developer, you might try internet development directly. If you need to develop an application running on a desktop, WinForms is stable and good enough tool. If you want to study something to stay in the market, you might better study invariant capabilities. Design, general O.O. logic, the things that are independent of the used tool, they keep their value.

I am not sure, I just got into it, but I am also beginning to think WPF is dead. Ah, yes sorry.. For those saying it is 'always interesting to study a new technique', (even if it dies tomorrow).. You give me the impression you never do anything else in your life then computers. We, normal mortals,  do not have an unlimited amount of resources.

Nevertheless, our Software Architect is crazy for it, so I will read the book! :-)

Answer 94

Marc;

  I encourage you to continue in your study as everything thing you mentioned above was my same thoughts 5 years ago.  Today I would never go back to Win Forms.  MSFT has said that XAML/WPF will continue, so WPF is safe as is C# and VB.NET so really it's a platform decision.  If you look around on these forums you'll see tons of comments on HTML5/Javascript which MSFT is porting to Windows 8 such that it interfaces directly with the new OS layer named WINRT.  You are correct about 30 years ago, remember the Java mantra "Write once run anywhere?"  Well today that paradigm is manifest on Windows Platforms starting with Windows 8 with (Get this!) Javascript and HTML...  Now that's a shocker to us strongly typed language lovers, especially when we rejected Javascript back in 1992 when Java was huge!  Sometimes it seems that change just happens in IT just for the fun of it, forget a universal stable skill we can all have.  But perhaps today unfortunately for some of us that platform IS Javascript and HTML5....  

Funny how the new players trumped logic.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 95

The techniques layed down by WPF will never die, and will be the basis of future techniques, so you'd better keep up!

The growing range of form factors means XAML layout techniques (using containers and alignment) is the best way to make your UI flexible enough. This is still the best solution for Windows 8, so WPF is still the best choice.

WPF introduced standardised heavily supported animation framework, as good as, if not better than Flash.

WPF taps directly into DirectX, allowing codeless transformations and graphicless gradients and shading techniques. Blend gave me the power to pull apart the controls, and learn animation, and create dumy data in an instant. Built in Easing functions save hours of DispatcherTimer coding. I can actually SEE my application running in the designer! I mean, oh my god, WCF or RSS services running live in the designer!

The quality of the application is just instantly obvious. Productivity is so much faster. I too tried Winforms again recently and was horrified at the painful way everything had to be coded by hand. Hours wasted, reams and reams of code to trip over.

Triggers and Behaviours, AttachedProperties, AttachedBehaviours! Now the UI does UI stuff, and the ViewModel does the data stuff, simples!

Lets talk MVVM, the wonder pattern of WPF/XAML was a major driver for this technique and has revolutionised development.

Two teams working in parallel, it happens, and it works! A shared interface and some dummy data and half the time to develop!

TDD was another reason I started letting XAML do all the work, less code to have to write tests for! :D

WPF binding is so powerful, and TwoWay/RelativeSource/Commands/ItemsSource/ItemsTemplate stuff means that I can build an entire database application with literally no code, other than a few lines of database setup! It was instrumental in spawning a whole new culture of codeless development. I can knock off a whole prototype application now in one sitting, binding controls to data is like making music!

Check out this little sample project on TechNet, a multi-levelled nested ComboBox solution, recurring controls created with one ItemsControl (acting as a conditional control generator) added to the default ComboBox Template, a couple of Converters and a DataTemplate to produce the items. WPF is FUN! I ENJOY building WPF applications. Once you truely grok WPF, it's more like playing than working!

And behind it all is the huge revenue supplies of Microsoft!
Pumping funds into new development and traditional backward compatability.

I used to make boring Intranet applications. Now I make Apps! XD

The techniques and tools WPF have pioneered WILL be evolved into the future ideas, so personally, i'd rather stay up with the wave and ride the crest, than get left behind in flat water :)

Regards,
Pete

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#PEJL

Answer 96

Marc;

  I encourage you to continue in your study as everything thing you mentioned above was my same thoughts 5 years ago.  Today I would never go back to Win Forms. 

Ah, but ... why? I mean purely to make an application, apart from that the decision if the technology is dead or not, why is WPF a better tool then WinForms? Why use a new difficult to use tool, if an old proven technique can do the same?

I also do not really need to switch to WPF, because I am a 'WinForms only' guy. I have done a lot of different things, may-be too much even. Nevertheless I will of course go on studying new techniques, not only WPF, and will see what the future brings, it is always a gamble. Fifteen years ago I studied Corba, now if you are talking about dead..  :-)

Answer 97

Up to you and yes I know people today that still use COBOL.  Most of them are on last legs of career.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 98

I don't think WPF is difficult to use, there's a learning curve.

There's a learning curve with any new technology but WPF can be particularly different.

In some ways it's more like asp.net what with the markup separated from code.

I'm working on a Winform and WPF application right now.

I wish there was more effort put into refactoring.

What I've been working on recently is winforms and WAY harder to do in winforms than WPF. 

So yes I think WPF is a better tool.

You can also leverage your new found xaml knowledge with Win RT and Silverlight.

The latter providing a route into web development for the winforms dev.

So long as you don't mind people asking you "isn't silverlight dead?" all the time.

Answer 99

Has anyone heard when MS is going to provide HTML5 as an alternate UX abstraction layer to XAML for C# development?  Basing the UI structure layout and styling on HTML5 (global standard non-proprietary technology) seems to be a natural progression that would eliminate some learning curve and provide consistency across various application development targets.

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Objects - first class citizens: identity, public interfaces and authority over behaviour and state

Answer 100

Xaml is better than html5 and MS offer both.

So I would be quite surprised if they came up with a third alternative in the near future.

Answer 101

 Ah, but ... why? I mean purely to make an application, apart from that the decision if the technology is dead or not, why is WPF a better tool then WinForms? Why use a new difficult to use tool, if an old proven technique can do the same?

Because we don't WANT to "do the same" -  we want to do better.    It's a lot easier in WPF to create a richer UI experience, easier to create custom behavior and appearance that in Winforms.   WPF also has much more flexible and powerful data binding.  

I agree WPF has a longer learning curve.   (irrelevant aside -  why do people say "steep" learning curve?   A learning curve is the measure of learning over time, so a "steep" learning curve is something you learn quickly)  But once you make the investment in WPF you can do really cool stuff.

Answer 102

Disagree.  If someone isn't using a design tool, they can't develop WPF?  I can show some very rich UIs that can prove otherwise.  I don't care to use blend, as it's quicker for me to just write the XAML.  I can see Blend as a good tool, but not for me and certainly not required.

Ditto.   I hand code my XAML - I prefer it that way - it gives me more control and I'm quite fast at it so I see no advantage to the high cost of Blend.  

Answer 103

WPF introduced standardised heavily supported animation framework, as good as, if not better than Flash.

Animations?? Ah, I loathe animations! Sorry. Reading a book called WPF4 unleashed. It should motivate me by saying all these cool animations are now possible. It has done the total opposite. I hate applications, where everything happily happily moves around, how cool, but the information is not to be found.

Answer 104

Blend can be a useful tool for designers who don't care for hand coding XAML. That's one of WPF's selling points, loose connection to the design.

Marc: Just because WPF can handle animations doesn't mean you have to learn it and/or start doing crappy design work. It can be powerful though. Say you're tasked with making a 3D interior design application where the user can select furniture and furnishings and then walk through it.
I'd happily do it in WPF but wouldn't dare touching the project if it was Flash. Likewise I'm stuck doing ASP.net pages for the past months and I long for more WPF. CSS and browser compatibility is driving me nuts. To bad Silverlight is being fased out. It was on the right path in my opinion.

Answer 105

It's like ASP.NET? I've got more experience with ASP.NET than with Winforms probably. Does that help me?

Answer 106

MicroSoft use non-proprietary technology?? LOL!! That will be the day...

Answer 107

It's like ASP.NET? I've got more experience with ASP.NET than with Winforms probably. Does that help me?

Sorry, maybe my English is unclear. I mean that I would rather work in WPF than in ASP.NET, any day of the week.

Answer 108

  Because we don't WANT to "do the same" -  we want to do better.    It's a lot easier in WPF to create a richer UI experience, easier to create custom behavior and appearance that in Winforms.  

First, please...sorry, but..., stop talking like a advertise agency or a sales guy. "We want to do better", give me a break. Second, more important, did I already mention I hate animations? Apart from that, I have no use for them in my present applications. These applications are industrial, very sober, user interfaces, used as a machine console. Then only the data binding  is left. Oh, by the way, I am a quick learner. But I find learning Korean a better challenge at the moment. 

Answer 109

it may sound like advertisement but its true...

the comparison result of working in wpf vs the result of working with winform in the same amount of time,

the wpf version will be much better looking much better written and much more fun to write!

data binding and wpf is not that hard to understand i too learn in alone from a very bad written book (wpf unleash) but after a few days/weeks playing around with it, i can't go back to winforms i just can't

it so much more easy and fun to work with then you would have believe!

Answer 110

Actually I challenge the statement "A Very Bad Book"  WPF Unleashed written by Adam Nathan is a very good book.  (I own every WPF book out there).  Some of the concepts in that book are exposed no where else.  It is NOT a WPF Desk Reference however and the lesser price, lesser number of topics covered prove that.  It was not updated and is now considered an older book, but Nathan in my opinion do a good job on that book.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 111

I'm sorry maybe i was a little bit harsh on the book (it wast my intention),

its a good book up until resources and data binding, there i just lost it, it was really really unclear what he was talking about, but maybe it was just me?

Answer 112

Actually I challenge the statement "A Very Bad Book"  WPF Unleashed written by Adam Nathan is a very good book.  (I own every WPF book out there).  Some of the concepts in that book are exposed no where else.  It is NOT a WPF Desk Reference however and the lesser price, lesser number of topics covered prove that.  It was not updated and is now considered an older book, but Nathan in my opinion do a good job on that book.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Of all of those WPF books that you own, which books do you consider the best?

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Rod

Answer 113

What a relief!

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João Miguel

Answer 114

My personal favorite is Mcdonald's book Pro WPF in C# 2010.

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 115

I had to learn WPF because my monster project required a good UI and WinForms (which I used previously) was already abandoned. I'm the only one working on it, so in addition to my high-performance, multi-threaded, distributed real-time processing, etc., skills, I had to add some serious MVVM, dynamic plug-in UI skills. I started with the Programming WPF / Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths book and I find it the best I've seen so. But being so outdated, I had to get others, and I find the "WPF unleashed" by Nathan unsatisfactory because it covers very few advanced topics, and very superficially, at that. If you need to do flashy but simple UI, then it's a good tutorial, but if you need some serious in-depth penetration of the WPF intricacies, it will not help you. For example, if you need to use custom controls and deal with template inheritance, or you need to modify the default behavior of those (e.g., during template application), or any advanced data-binding scenarios - none of that is even mentioned in the book.

This from someone who does UI "on the side".

Kamen

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Currently using Visual Studio 2010 SP1, native C++ (Windows API) and C# (.Net, WPF), on Windows 7 64-bit; Mountain Time zone.

Answer 116

Ok, but all you guys say is GUI, GUI, GUI. Right? Then I have nothing with WPF. My applications are simple machine consoles on the GUI part (in other aspects they can be really complicated though). Also I do not think it is 'fun' to make applications with all kind of, unnecessary, animations in them. Everything that moves for no reason, irritates me in an application. I absolutely do not get 'a kick' from making such applications.

The only thing that remains is the data binding and MVVM stuff, may-be. But even then I think I can better use my time for other things, were it not that the architect I am working with drools with WPF.

By the way. all this 'it's fun'... Is that American may-be, or a difference in culture? Or my bad English.? I think watching my team win with football, chatting with pretty girls, running the 10k in a good personal best time is fun. But programming, although I do not dislike it, not at all, remains work. And I am not doing it, because I have nothing else to do. So I am not going to study WPF, 'just for fun'.

Answer 117

Even if I were building a simple machine console, I would use WPF, because...

1) I'd rather my buttons throbbed instead of blinked

2) I'd rather messages popped/sprang up noticably, instead of just appearing

3) Binding data means vastly less code, less bugs, less time to write, easier to read

4) Binding leads to separation (eg MVVM) which means easily reskinnable

5) Separation of code from UI makes code very easy to test

6) I want my UI to stretch and fit ANY console size, not break if the screen changes

It depends on how big, important, and durable your product will be, but what I say above is music to most companies' ears.

On a practical note, if I was at a trade fair looking machines and their consoles, I'd certainly prefer the sexy modern MS Surface/iPad feeling console, to a static Winform console. Computer printer screens are a good example is a major influence on purchase.

Now the lecture...

It is natural (and common) to build up the defences and reasons not to take the pain of learning something new. Especially if you only consider it a job, and can get by just fine as you are.

The only problem you will find is if you ever had to change jobs, as everyone else is moving on, there are less roles and rates/salaries for WinForm development are dropping.

WinRT is more like Silverlight than WPF, so the final fact is WPF is still the most modern Microsoft development option.

So my honest and most friendly advice to you, is to just take it in at whatever pace you like. Thank your architect for giving you the chance to reskill/upgrade/modernise. Just take the bits you need for now (binding) and ignore the rest. But please do not damage your future prospects, or you may end up on the scrap heap :O

Kind regards,
Pete

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#PEJL

Answer 118

Points 1 and 2 are exáctly the things I loathe. I never make any button blinking anyway, and just appearing is less annoying than springing up. Personally I hate that sexy iPad view, and I prefer the static Windows view. Repeatingly stating this GUI sexiness is demotivating me to learn WPF enormously.  Points 3 to 5 can, more or less, be done also with good architecture.

And, really, I am the quickest learner there is. Our hardware partner was shocked when I spoke to him in Korean. Now that was funny. This WPF is just a repetition of moves again. I just do not like it to spend time on another development tool. It's old wine in new bags for point 3 to 5. I am just bored with it. Another way of making settings, another way of  making separate threads, another way of.... Yawn... Like they want to sell courses again.

And do not worry, I will read that bleeding book anyway. I'll never be on the scrap heap. Just don't say it's 'fun'.

Answer 119

WPF is fun and beautiful as well.  MSFT claimed years ago that there would be a division of talent in the enterprise...  Coders and GUI designers.  WPF does take more time, but it's far superior to anything on the market today!  I personally like it so much that I refuse to do anything in Windows forms any longer.

Alas, but we all have to run to keep up with this industry.  If we don't have ASP.NET, WPF, and other MSFT frameworks understood, we'll be relegated to legacy work.  I've done that before and it gets really boring. 

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

Answer 120

WPF is fun and beautiful as well.  MSFT claimed years ago that there would be a division of talent in the enterprise...  Coders and GUI designers.  WPF does take more time, but it's far superior to anything on the market today!  I personally like it so much that I refuse to do anything in Windows forms any longer.

Alas, but we all have to run to keep up with this industry.  If we don't have ASP.NET, WPF, and other MSFT frameworks understood, we'll be relegated to legacy work.  I've done that before and it gets really boring. 

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JP Cowboy Coders Unite!

I totally agree.

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Rod

Answer 121

WPF is fun and beautiful as well. 

Pfffffff.......

That's your opinion. I think it's a pain in the behind. Nevertheless I will learn it anyway, but just because there is no alternative. By the way, I also know Java, ASP.NET, Vision recognition software, Radiology, advanced image processing, Linux, Unix, German, Spanish, Korean and even first Aid and I know how to extinguish a fire. And useless stuff like the history of the Holy Roman Empire. So, I am not a guy hopelessly rusted into Winforms that uhm, needs sage advice to learn the beautiful platform called WPF.  Nevertheless trust me, I am brilliant, I will read the book and do the thingie. Just forgive for not being over enthusiastic.

Answer 122

WPF is fun and beautiful as well. 

Pfffffff.......

That's your opinion. I think it's a pain in the behind. Nevertheless I will learn it anyway, but just because there is no alternative. By the way, I also know Java, ASP.NET, Vision recognition software, Radiology, advanced image processing, Linux, Unix, German, Spanish, Korean and even first Aid and I know how to extinguish a fire. And useless stuff like the history of the Holy Roman Empire. So, I am not a guy hopelessly rusted into Winforms that uhm, needs sage advice to learn the beautiful platform called WPF.  Nevertheless trust me, I am brilliant, I will read the book and do the thingie. Just forgive for not being over enthusiastic.

please write back after you work with wpf for a while i will love to see if your opinion has changed

i think it will,

wpf its just hard to learn after you get the hang of it, its a beautiful beautiful thing [=

Answer 123

Hi Marc,

Yes, WPF is different and, at times, difficult because it's different. But it's those differences give you new possibilities that were not possible with WinForms.

When I implemented complex GUIs in WinForms, I often had to resort to using third party components from outside vendors.  With WPF, I don't have to settle for what an outside vendor offers.  I can design exactly what I want.  For example, the WPF concept of container controls makes it harder to do "easy" things, compared to Winforms -- it's harder to simply get the selected item from a ListBox or CombBox, because in WPF they can contain anything.  But that also means that, using WPF, it was very easy for me to build a custom tree control with buttons as nodes, and style it exactly as I wanted.

WPF has allowed interface implementation to take a big leap forward.

So, grumble if you want.  But I invite you to come back later and comment on the new power you've experienced and the new, more complex interfaces you've been able to design and implement.

Good luck!

Anonymous9748

Answer 124

When I implemented complex GUIs in WinForms

Hey I think that I have said about 10 times now, that I am not interested in complex GUI...

That is the whole thing that irritates me about WPF. It makes stupid unnecessary fringe easy. (And it makes the easy difficult may-be but that is not the point even.) I loathe those happily moving cool parts. When I first used Windows 7, the first thing I did was google for "how to make windows 7 look like xp" to get rid of those stupid shine through window borders. I do not even think that WPF is that difficult.  I just think it makes the useless irritating crap easy. And I am just going to learn it, because may-be the customer wants that crap, and I just need to be paid. But I will never love WPF.

And now I am not going to repeat myself anymore.

Answer 125

Sounds like you need to find a nice and safe legacy technology that should hold you until retirement in a nice and safe company that wont change technology for the same amount of years. You wont need to learn any more frills or fancy stuff and you'll be an expert in your area. There are people selling state of the art cell phones and there are people selling vintage, antique dial phones that may cost more even. People are different. Find what makes you happy.

Going back to the subject, WPF isn't dead and wont be for a while as far as we can tell. Most people who use it, love it and if it dies (which it of course will some time in the future) most of us will advance to the next level being offered. That's one of the things that makes me enjoy this trade, it evolves.

Answer 126

Microsoft itself heavily uses the WPF technology in their own apps, I can't see it going anywhere.

Is that why they killed the function

FolderBrowserDialog();

Answer 127

And still... Two and a Half years later, after this was originally posted... folks are still posting to this thread on this incredibly active and lively WPF forum about a technology that seems to me is still being used.... go figure.

The naysayers are Like bystanders at a NASCAR race... eagerly waiting for the next "Big Crash"!

~Christine

Answer 128

I'm amazed. WPF has been declared dead so many times now that I don't understand someone will actually still believe it. And it will probably be declared dead again when Windows 9 rumours start to roll out.

WPF/XAML is hands down the best UI framework/language I have ever tried. Sure, it's not perfect, but once you get used to it, WPF and MVVM really is a no brainer.

I rarely deal in absolutes, but anyone who says that Windows Forms is easier to use or better than WPF is wrong.

I really wish Microsoft would take over the Mono project and get full .NET 4.5 support with WPF for other platforms, and I'd never code in another framework.

At least until WPF dies. When Windows 10 is released.

Answer 129

On 5/11/2013 11:30 AM, Christine L. _ wrote:

And still... Two and a Half years later, after this was originally posted... folks are still posting to this thread on this incredibly active and lively WPF forum about a technology that seems to me is still being used.... go figure.



The naysayers are Like bystanders at a NASCAR race... eagerly waiting for the next "Big Crash"!

I have worked on two contracts over that last year and a half using WPF and MVVM in corporation and state agency with enterprise level business solutions on conversions from Windows forms based solutions to WPF forms, MVVN and N-Tier. Both the corporation and the state have spent millions of dollars on the conversion for their desktop level solutions to WPF.  WPF is not going away anytime soon.

Answer 130

On 5/11/2013 11:30 AM, Christine L. _ wrote:

And still... Two and a Half years later, after this was originally posted... folks are still posting to this thread on this incredibly active and lively WPF forum about a technology that seems to me is still being used.... go figure.



The naysayers are Like bystanders at a NASCAR race... eagerly waiting for the next "Big Crash"!

I have worked on two contracts over that last year and a half using WPF and MVVM in corporation and state agency with enterprise level business solutions on conversions from Windows forms based solutions to WPF forms, MVVN and N-Tier. Both the corporation and the state have spent millions of dollars on the conversion for their desktop level solutions to WPF.  WPF is not going away anytime soon.

Hello Mr. Old :P  You may have misunderstood my very poor attempt at sarcasm and a bit of being just down right mean because I'm so tired of this thread popping up. 

So to be clear... I do not believe WPF will be going anywhere anytime soon. 

The release of Windows 8 Pro is proof of that.

So... Good Lord willing and as long as the creek don't rise, I'll be using WPF for a very, very long time.

~Christine