4 ms·

The author has some good points. But the solution he proposes - bringing back WPF with a bunch of features they didn't bother adding in the last 12 years - tha

The author has some good points. But the solution he proposes - bringing back WPF with a bunch of features they didn't bother adding in the last 12 years - that sounds questionable to me. WPF wasn't really adopted the first time around. WinForms kept being used for years (till this day) after WPF was the official guidance. And now, after WPF was abandoned for UWP there is very little chance Microsoft is going to resurrect it.

achr2 9y ago
I disagree - WPF is still used in a very large swath of business applications. As the author points out, if a fork of WPF was modernized with all of the current framework features (generics, async/await, deeper MVVM integration) it would be a great UI framework.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  In addition another great step would be if they cleaned up xaml the same way they cleaned up MVC with Razor.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    That is what XAML Standard is for.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
WPF was very successful, it didn't kill off Winforms but it was used in many many small enterprise apps. Then Microsoft just...abandons it. Many were annoyed by that. UWP would be reasonable if they didn't require giving up so many .net features, I'm particularly disappointed that they killed off the DLR for it, and made reflection more costly (because it is supposed to be ahead of time compiled only). It also reminds me of Silverlight in the number of arbitrary things left out from WPF. So rather than switching from WPF to UWP, I've gone from WPF to...Javascript/DOM/Canvas.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Same here. I used to be a desktop guy but after Winforms, WPF, Silverlight, WinRT and UWP new stuff will be web apps only. I don't trust MS on the desktop anymore.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    They still have a better track record than the competition regarding supporting technologies, or changing direction on a whim. So I am definitely betting on them, even though I also suffered some delusions since Windows 3.x days.

achr2 9y ago

I disagree - WPF is still used in a very large swath of business applications. As the author points out, if a fork of WPF was modernized with all of the current framework features (generics, async/await, deeper MVVM integration) it would be a great UI framework.

maxxxxx 9y ago
In addition another great step would be if they cleaned up xaml the same way they cleaned up MVC with Razor.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  That is what XAML Standard is for.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

WPF was very successful, it didn't kill off Winforms but it was used in many many small enterprise apps. Then Microsoft just...abandons it. Many were annoyed by that. UWP would be reasonable if they didn't require giving up so many .net features, I'm particularly disappointed that they killed off the DLR for it, and made reflection more costly (because it is supposed to be ahead of time compiled only). It also reminds me of Silverlight in the number of arbitrary things left out from WPF. So rather than switching from WPF to UWP, I've gone from WPF to...Javascript/DOM/Canvas.

maxxxxx 9y ago
Same here. I used to be a desktop guy but after Winforms, WPF, Silverlight, WinRT and UWP new stuff will be web apps only. I don't trust MS on the desktop anymore.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  They still have a better track record than the competition regarding supporting technologies, or changing direction on a whim. So I am definitely betting on them, even though I also suffered some delusions since Windows 3.x days.