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Couldn't agree more. Microsoft lost their minds on the UI / desktop app side - which was a core strength (historically). WinForms was fine / great / amazing. 9

Couldn't agree more. Microsoft lost their minds on the UI / desktop app side - which was a core strength (historically). WinForms was fine / great / amazing. 90% of business / line apps could be handled with it. I have no idea how / why it's taken them so long and they STILL have not gotten their replacement story straight for it and they regressed the designer in .NET. Did they just lose their minds there? Hire a bunch of idiots caught up in fads instead of folks who've been around for a bit. It honestly is mind blowing. By now they could have had a cross platform WinForms story or something. The new WinForms designer is so annoying at times. "Oh, we support winforms" - no you don't. And pretty much the stuff after it has been garbage.

olau 5y ago
UI component design is extremely difficult. It's at the intersection between UI design and API design, both difficult disciplines in themselves. It doesn't help that it has traditionally been mired in OO hype sauce.
- tralarpa 5y ago
  > UI component design is extremely difficult I don't see much difference between UIs of today and 20 years ago. Actually, I think UIs are nowadays less complex (more screen space available; and you have to worry less about CPU consumption). One would except that was enough time to figure out component design.
  - throw_m239339 5y ago
    > I don't see much difference between UIs of today and 20 years ago. Actually, I think UIs are nowadays less complex (more screen space available; and you have to worry less about CPU consumption). One would except that was enough time to figure out component design. Today, UI need to be responsive, because of all the different screen resolutions and formats and form factors. That wasn't really the case 20 years ago.
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  Yes, UI library design is hard because it a series of trade-offs one has to make when designing the API. Make the API too customizable and it's a horror to use with horrible performances, make the API to rigid and people will complain it's hard to customize. WinForm is far easier to use than WPF... except that WinForm makes creating custom components a pain. WPF is easy to customize... except that it performs worse than WinForm, this isn't even up to debate... But also, all these moving parts are why a lot of developers chose to go with Web techs for their UI, for better or worse.
EMM_386 5y ago
> Did they just lose their minds there? Hire a bunch of idiots caught up in fads instead of folks who've been around for a bit. No, they just took the focus off the Windows UI. They went cross-platform with .Net Core, which enables it to run in the cloud on Linux boxes. This was the focus. I hope they come back around to a proper .Net WinForms designer under .Net Core, but for now the full framework can be run and will be supported. There are a massive number of WinForm applications in use. I was recently maintaining a massive 20-year-old .Net WinForms application, it still runs fine.
- lbriner 5y ago
  It is funny how much they have strived for one platform to rule them all when it would have been easier and cheaper just to maintain windows, web and mobile separately and kept the frameworks suited to their particular platform.
  - whoknowswhat11 5y ago
    I actually think they could have gotten winforms x-platform by now if they'd tried. Or some kind of x-platform story if they wanted. The endless other crap has just eaten dev time like crazy.
pjmlp 5y ago
Easy, they did to .NET the same as IE. When Sinosfky and his team, brought .NET ideas to COM via WinRT, which was kind of Ext-VOS revival anyway, I bet they fired everyone on Forms and WPF, or moved to other teams. Otherwise how to justify they had to ramp up Forms and WPF teams again, and we have already seen several PMs take ownership of the projects since Core started.
naasking 5y ago
> Microsoft lost their minds on the UI / desktop app side - which was a core strength (historically). Exactly, was a core strength. They saw the writing on the wall though, SaaS and cloud was where the money was and is at the moment, and that's where .NET now excels.
bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
Would agree with you on Winforms, it's a pretty good GUI RAD development environment, and I wish they'd just stop trying to replace it with something 'better'. WPF I found to be constantly irritating and produces weird looking GUI apps, but maybe others have a better experience.

olau 5y ago

UI component design is extremely difficult. It's at the intersection between UI design and API design, both difficult disciplines in themselves. It doesn't help that it has traditionally been mired in OO hype sauce.

tralarpa 5y ago
> UI component design is extremely difficult I don't see much difference between UIs of today and 20 years ago. Actually, I think UIs are nowadays less complex (more screen space available; and you have to worry less about CPU consumption). One would except that was enough time to figure out component design.
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  > I don't see much difference between UIs of today and 20 years ago. Actually, I think UIs are nowadays less complex (more screen space available; and you have to worry less about CPU consumption). One would except that was enough time to figure out component design. Today, UI need to be responsive, because of all the different screen resolutions and formats and form factors. That wasn't really the case 20 years ago.
throw_m239339 5y ago
Yes, UI library design is hard because it a series of trade-offs one has to make when designing the API. Make the API too customizable and it's a horror to use with horrible performances, make the API to rigid and people will complain it's hard to customize. WinForm is far easier to use than WPF... except that WinForm makes creating custom components a pain. WPF is easy to customize... except that it performs worse than WinForm, this isn't even up to debate... But also, all these moving parts are why a lot of developers chose to go with Web techs for their UI, for better or worse.

EMM_386 5y ago

> Did they just lose their minds there? Hire a bunch of idiots caught up in fads instead of folks who've been around for a bit. No, they just took the focus off the Windows UI. They went cross-platform with .Net Core, which enables it to run in the cloud on Linux boxes. This was the focus. I hope they come back around to a proper .Net WinForms designer under .Net Core, but for now the full framework can be run and will be supported. There are a massive number of WinForm applications in use. I was recently maintaining a massive 20-year-old .Net WinForms application, it still runs fine.

lbriner 5y ago
It is funny how much they have strived for one platform to rule them all when it would have been easier and cheaper just to maintain windows, web and mobile separately and kept the frameworks suited to their particular platform.
- whoknowswhat11 5y ago
  I actually think they could have gotten winforms x-platform by now if they'd tried. Or some kind of x-platform story if they wanted. The endless other crap has just eaten dev time like crazy.

pjmlp 5y ago

Easy, they did to .NET the same as IE. When Sinosfky and his team, brought .NET ideas to COM via WinRT, which was kind of Ext-VOS revival anyway, I bet they fired everyone on Forms and WPF, or moved to other teams. Otherwise how to justify they had to ramp up Forms and WPF teams again, and we have already seen several PMs take ownership of the projects since Core started.

naasking 5y ago

> Microsoft lost their minds on the UI / desktop app side - which was a core strength (historically). Exactly, was a core strength. They saw the writing on the wall though, SaaS and cloud was where the money was and is at the moment, and that's where .NET now excels.

bigbizisverywyz 5y ago

Would agree with you on Winforms, it's a pretty good GUI RAD development environment, and I wish they'd just stop trying to replace it with something 'better'. WPF I found to be constantly irritating and produces weird looking GUI apps, but maybe others have a better experience.