3 ms·

MS .NET burned me hard with WPF. After finally looking into it, it more or less was cancelled for greener pastures. I don't think the newer Windows UI-Framewor

MS .NET burned me hard with WPF. After finally looking into it, it more or less was cancelled for greener pastures. I don't think the newer Windows UI-Frameworks are loved that much and UWP is not really convincing for desktop applications. Just too much hassle for too little gain and the threat of vendor lock-in.

pjmlp 5y ago
It is still actively developed, even if it doesn't get the same WinUI love. https://github.com/dotnet/wpf https://github.com/dotnet/wpf But yeah, having ramped down the team while beting the farm into WinRT wasn't the best idea. Still, just like VB 6 in Windows 10, WPF will be around for decades to come and it isn't like there are revolutionary UI concepts to implement.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
“I don't think the newer Windows UI-Frameworks are loved that much and UWP is not really convincing for desktop applications. Just too much hassle for too little gain and the threat of vendor lock-in.” I used to be a desktop dev but after the mess with Winforms, WinRT, WPF, Silverlight, UWP and WinUI I would never bet again on an MS GUI framework. Most likely it will be abandoned soon and put into maintenance mode. I still don’t understand why they constantly crank out new frameworks that do basically the same instead of evolving an existing one like WPF. The cost of enveloping, testing and documenting these frameworks must be enormous.
- projektfu 5y ago
  I briefly looked into UWP when it was being promoted with such fanfare, and the only thing I could see were the gross incompatibilities with WPF, basically requiring you to maintain two guis if you wanted to use the app store and support two versions of Windows, let alone Xamarin. Then they basically dumped the app store model they were going to use and started allowing anything on there. It's https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ all over again, except in this case it's all just Microsoft!
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    I looked at UWP when it came out. The only thing I found was that it was different but I didn’t see any improvements over WPF. I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t make it compatible with WPF.
burnte 5y ago
Years and years ago I was offered a job as an MS tech evangelist for the purpose of pushing Mozilla to use "new" MS technologies coming in what would eventually be Vista. I had a decent repuation in the Mozilla community, and I've always been a good communicator. The problem was some of the things they wanted me to push I knew would never get out the door. There were three big issues although I can only remember two, which were WPF and WinFS. I said flat out WinFS isn't going to make the cut, the third feature wouldn't, and even if WPF did make it into the final build, Mozilla doesn't have the resources or desire to move Mozilla to WPF, especially since mozilla is a cross platform app. "Yes, we know, but utilizing WPF will make it easier to develop on Windows!" I pointed out while that's good for MS, it provides no benefit to Mozilla's non-windows users, and Mozilla would never do it. And WinFS isn't working at all, so why would they spend even a moment trying to figure out how the new FS would benefit an application? I think the third leg was Palladium. "It'll make online banking so secure!" I remember commenting that with all the flack it was getting, it'll have no buy in from anyone else, and flop. I don't think compulsive "tell it how it is" people are good for evangelist roles. :D

pjmlp 5y ago

It is still actively developed, even if it doesn't get the same WinUI love. https://github.com/dotnet/wpf https://github.com/dotnet/wpf But yeah, having ramped down the team while beting the farm into WinRT wasn't the best idea. Still, just like VB 6 in Windows 10, WPF will be around for decades to come and it isn't like there are revolutionary UI concepts to implement.

spaetzleesser 5y ago

“I don't think the newer Windows UI-Frameworks are loved that much and UWP is not really convincing for desktop applications. Just too much hassle for too little gain and the threat of vendor lock-in.” I used to be a desktop dev but after the mess with Winforms, WinRT, WPF, Silverlight, UWP and WinUI I would never bet again on an MS GUI framework. Most likely it will be abandoned soon and put into maintenance mode. I still don’t understand why they constantly crank out new frameworks that do basically the same instead of evolving an existing one like WPF. The cost of enveloping, testing and documenting these frameworks must be enormous.

projektfu 5y ago
I briefly looked into UWP when it was being promoted with such fanfare, and the only thing I could see were the gross incompatibilities with WPF, basically requiring you to maintain two guis if you wanted to use the app store and support two versions of Windows, let alone Xamarin. Then they basically dumped the app store model they were going to use and started allowing anything on there. It's https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ all over again, except in this case it's all just Microsoft!
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I looked at UWP when it came out. The only thing I found was that it was different but I didn’t see any improvements over WPF. I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t make it compatible with WPF.

burnte 5y ago

Years and years ago I was offered a job as an MS tech evangelist for the purpose of pushing Mozilla to use "new" MS technologies coming in what would eventually be Vista. I had a decent repuation in the Mozilla community, and I've always been a good communicator. The problem was some of the things they wanted me to push I knew would never get out the door. There were three big issues although I can only remember two, which were WPF and WinFS. I said flat out WinFS isn't going to make the cut, the third feature wouldn't, and even if WPF did make it into the final build, Mozilla doesn't have the resources or desire to move Mozilla to WPF, especially since mozilla is a cross platform app. "Yes, we know, but utilizing WPF will make it easier to develop on Windows!" I pointed out while that's good for MS, it provides no benefit to Mozilla's non-windows users, and Mozilla would never do it. And WinFS isn't working at all, so why would they spend even a moment trying to figure out how the new FS would benefit an application? I think the third leg was Palladium. "It'll make online banking so secure!" I remember commenting that with all the flack it was getting, it'll have no buy in from anyone else, and flop. I don't think compulsive "tell it how it is" people are good for evangelist roles. :D