4 ms·

I'm not horrified and I don't know any Windows developers that are (although I'm sure there are some out there). This is being blown way out of proportion, I b

by daeken 15y ago

I'm not horrified and I don't know any Windows developers that are (although I'm sure there are some out there). This is being blown way out of proportion, I believe. Edit: I especially like the assertion that WPF is not fast. Evidently the author has never done much with the 3d transform functionality in WPF -- you can do insanely performant graphically-intensive apps using it. The fact that most developers don't understand how the API works doesn't mean the API doesn't kick ass. I'm not a fan of XAML, but everything else about WPF is really, really nice.

mathgladiator 15y ago
> The fact that most developers don't understand how the API works This signals a usability fail in my mind.
- nettdata 15y ago
  I see it more like sometimes shit is just hard to do well, taking time and effort to learn, and some developers don't put in the required work to reap the rewards.
- daeken 15y ago
  They made it very easy to get things up and going, and easy to optimize if you understand that graphics and WPF work. Most people don't, which is why most OpenGL and D3D apps that haven't been heavily optimized over time are very slow; graphics are hard, even without the extra burden of understanding how your GUI layer functions. It's easy to shoot yourself in the foot with WPF, but it also makes it easy for people to design really efficient apps if they take the time to learn how it differs from other GUI toolkits.
- Quarrelsome 15y ago
  Nah the API just uses a different pattern from the "classic" WinForm development that most developers are used to.
- yesimahuman 15y ago
  I did find the official WPF docs and examples rather simplistic. Most of the advanced stuff I luckily stumbled upon on forums or blog posts. Perhaps developers don't have enough information to build upon the simple examples.
  - mdaniel 15y ago
    I believe most, if not all, of MSDN now supports user-contributed content alongside the API refs. Thus, it would serve your fellow developers if you were to annotate the lacking documentation with (1) example code or (2) pointers to the blog postings that you found.
chrisjsmith 15y ago
I think people are going on the assertion that every-day apps written with WPF (i.e. Visual Studio 2010) are a step back from their old GDI-based ancestors with respect to performance. I mean we've had to buy a shit load of graphics cards to get acceptable performance on our (definitely not shoddy) kit.
maxxxxx 15y ago
A simple to medium complexity WPF app will be slower than its Winforms or Win32 counter part. It will use a lot more memory too. There may be ways around this but why can't MS optimize it instead of forcing every developer to jump through the same hoops?
- rbanffy 15y ago
  > why can't MS optimize They can. They just prefer to make every Windows developer jump through hoops, as it's so much more cost-effective.
  - coderdude 15y ago
    Hey look, it's this guy. Troll of every Microsoft thread.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      I can hardly afford the time it would take to do that. Besides that, I think my assessment of the situation is solid. It is much more cost-effective to make your developers (who will follow you, as they have huge investments on your platform already and wouldn't be willing or able to switch) move the direction you want than move in the direction they want. In their position, being able to do whatever is convenient for them regardless of how inconvenient it is to their users, I'd do exactly the same. It's a delicate act of balancing your inconvenience of moving along with your vendor and your cost of migrating to another. As long as the second half is kept high enough, they can do a lot of inconvenience on the first.
    - pasbesoin 15y ago
      This strikes me as a particularly un-HN-like comment. Accusatory tone is not a valued conversational technique here. Be mindful of not slipping into the more emotional tone that some have observed nipping at the edges of the HN community. (I don't mean to sound as if I'm speaking from a position of moral superiority, nor expertise with regard to the topic at hand. Just an observation and suggestion.) P.S. For the record, I did not downvote anything. That is coming from elsewhere.

by daeken 15y ago

mathgladiator 15y ago

> The fact that most developers don't understand how the API works This signals a usability fail in my mind.

nettdata 15y ago
I see it more like sometimes shit is just hard to do well, taking time and effort to learn, and some developers don't put in the required work to reap the rewards.
daeken 15y ago
They made it very easy to get things up and going, and easy to optimize if you understand that graphics and WPF work. Most people don't, which is why most OpenGL and D3D apps that haven't been heavily optimized over time are very slow; graphics are hard, even without the extra burden of understanding how your GUI layer functions. It's easy to shoot yourself in the foot with WPF, but it also makes it easy for people to design really efficient apps if they take the time to learn how it differs from other GUI toolkits.
Quarrelsome 15y ago
Nah the API just uses a different pattern from the "classic" WinForm development that most developers are used to.
yesimahuman 15y ago
I did find the official WPF docs and examples rather simplistic. Most of the advanced stuff I luckily stumbled upon on forums or blog posts. Perhaps developers don't have enough information to build upon the simple examples.
- mdaniel 15y ago
  I believe most, if not all, of MSDN now supports user-contributed content alongside the API refs. Thus, it would serve your fellow developers if you were to annotate the lacking documentation with (1) example code or (2) pointers to the blog postings that you found.

chrisjsmith 15y ago

I think people are going on the assertion that every-day apps written with WPF (i.e. Visual Studio 2010) are a step back from their old GDI-based ancestors with respect to performance. I mean we've had to buy a shit load of graphics cards to get acceptable performance on our (definitely not shoddy) kit.

maxxxxx 15y ago

A simple to medium complexity WPF app will be slower than its Winforms or Win32 counter part. It will use a lot more memory too. There may be ways around this but why can't MS optimize it instead of forcing every developer to jump through the same hoops?

rbanffy 15y ago
> why can't MS optimize They can. They just prefer to make every Windows developer jump through hoops, as it's so much more cost-effective.
- coderdude 15y ago
  Hey look, it's this guy. Troll of every Microsoft thread.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    I can hardly afford the time it would take to do that. Besides that, I think my assessment of the situation is solid. It is much more cost-effective to make your developers (who will follow you, as they have huge investments on your platform already and wouldn't be willing or able to switch) move the direction you want than move in the direction they want. In their position, being able to do whatever is convenient for them regardless of how inconvenient it is to their users, I'd do exactly the same. It's a delicate act of balancing your inconvenience of moving along with your vendor and your cost of migrating to another. As long as the second half is kept high enough, they can do a lot of inconvenience on the first.
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    This strikes me as a particularly un-HN-like comment. Accusatory tone is not a valued conversational technique here. Be mindful of not slipping into the more emotional tone that some have observed nipping at the edges of the HN community. (I don't mean to sound as if I'm speaking from a position of moral superiority, nor expertise with regard to the topic at hand. Just an observation and suggestion.) P.S. For the record, I did not downvote anything. That is coming from elsewhere.