5 ms·

It's hard to beat WinForms for cranking out a quick and easy UI on Windows.

pjmlp 9y ago
Kind of. VCL is also quite good, in spite of how things went for Delphi and C++ Builder. Nothing prevents you to use WPF/UWP with visual designer and code-behind, just like Forms. Where WPF/UWL loose in simplicity is when you want to start customizing L&F or use the standard DataGrid.
- noir_lord 9y ago
  VCL was the best back in the days when I used Delphi 5/6, it's kinda sad if it's still true that VCL is still a front runner after a decade of near stagnation by whoever owned it at any given point. I'll admit though that the only IDE I've used that I like as much as Delphi 6 is Intellij.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  WinForms is essentially “inspired” by VCL, through Anders Hejlsberg I guess. As are some parts of C#. WPF otoh is inspired by corporate brain damage.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    > WPF otoh is inspired by corporate brain damage. Not at all, WPF is like having a monoid in the category of endofunctors for UI programming. Its concepts of UI Lego style building blocks, with templates, commands, mvvm, multi-binding, storyboards..., might be hard to grasp if one is happy with plain code-behind snippets, but once one gets it, it is quite powerful way to write large scale UIs.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      It might be powerful, but if something goes wrong it’s impossible to debug. That alone negates all of its advantages to me. I don’t like magic I can’t debug or see source code for.
    - mnsc 9y ago
      > WPF is like having a monoid in the category of endofunctors for UI programming. Takeaway: I will start using WPF right after I get a solid grasp on category theory. That will happen "very soon".
    - m_fayer 9y ago
      I don't know any of that terminology or category theory in general, but I'd like to assure anyone who cares that you really don't have to to get the elegance and power of WPF. It was a steep learning curve sure, but totally worth it. As far as visual control, elegance, and development-pleasure, I think it far surpasses WinForms, the Android UI toolkit, Cocoa, and the web stack. (Though XAML is annoyingly verbose.) The only reason I stay away is because of the performance issues, and the opaque ways in which performance degrades.

Kind of. VCL is also quite good, in spite of how things went for Delphi and C++ Builder. Nothing prevents you to use WPF/UWP with visual designer and code-behind, just like Forms. Where WPF/UWL loose in simplicity is when you want to start customizing L&F or use the standard DataGrid.

noir_lord 9y ago
VCL was the best back in the days when I used Delphi 5/6, it's kinda sad if it's still true that VCL is still a front runner after a decade of near stagnation by whoever owned it at any given point. I'll admit though that the only IDE I've used that I like as much as Delphi 6 is Intellij.
0xbear 9y ago
WinForms is essentially “inspired” by VCL, through Anders Hejlsberg I guess. As are some parts of C#. WPF otoh is inspired by corporate brain damage.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  > WPF otoh is inspired by corporate brain damage. Not at all, WPF is like having a monoid in the category of endofunctors for UI programming. Its concepts of UI Lego style building blocks, with templates, commands, mvvm, multi-binding, storyboards..., might be hard to grasp if one is happy with plain code-behind snippets, but once one gets it, it is quite powerful way to write large scale UIs.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    It might be powerful, but if something goes wrong it’s impossible to debug. That alone negates all of its advantages to me. I don’t like magic I can’t debug or see source code for.
  - mnsc 9y ago
    > WPF is like having a monoid in the category of endofunctors for UI programming. Takeaway: I will start using WPF right after I get a solid grasp on category theory. That will happen "very soon".
  - m_fayer 9y ago
    I don't know any of that terminology or category theory in general, but I'd like to assure anyone who cares that you really don't have to to get the elegance and power of WPF. It was a steep learning curve sure, but totally worth it. As far as visual control, elegance, and development-pleasure, I think it far surpasses WinForms, the Android UI toolkit, Cocoa, and the web stack. (Though XAML is annoyingly verbose.) The only reason I stay away is because of the performance issues, and the opaque ways in which performance degrades.