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The actual title is: 6 .NET Myths Dispelled — Celebrating 21 Years of .NET And they forgot 2... Myth 7: The .NET branding dept sucks. Myth 8: The .NET deskto

The actual title is: 6 .NET Myths Dispelled — Celebrating 21 Years of .NET And they forgot 2... Myth 7: The .NET branding dept sucks. Myth 8: The .NET desktop strategy has sucked since Build 2011. Oh wait, both of those are still true.

gfody 5y ago
> The .NET desktop strategy has sucked since Build 2011 only if you need cross platform. WPF is pretty good and WinForms still ain't broken. oh you said strategy .. I think the strategy is wait for something to get popular, maybe something will happen with BlazorWebView
- ourmandave 5y ago
  Winforms is my 9-to-5. But hHow many new official-way-to-do apps have there been? I've lost count. Actually, what's the current one(s)?
- foepys 5y ago
  Do not start new projects on WPF. WPF is considered done, meaning no bug fixes whatsoever. There is nobody working on it, not a single person.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    WPF is still used heavily in Visual Studio.
  - lloydatkinson 5y ago
    This is a ridiculous piece of FUD.
    - foepys 5y ago
      You say that it's "FUD" but why is point 1 of the roadmap still "Incorporating .NET Framework servicing fixes into .NET Core 3.1, .NET 5 and .NET 6"? It has said this for years now. Nearly all commits are bot commits updating dependencies, some are to keep the CI process up to date, and all others only fix typos or other strings. 2 months ago somebody fixed a few things but no activity since then. Microsoft is trying to transition WPF into a community project as indicated by the current roadmap and I don't see this meaning anything different that them abandoning WPF for good.
guitarbill 5y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted, as these are real pain points. As other comments have pointed out, .NET rebranding sucks and is confusing (like .NET Core, .NET Standard, etc.). And the questions around the GUI toolkits don't help. WinForms is the only thing that is (still) consistently developed - kind of.
- smcl 5y ago
  I do not think it is an issue about (re)branding. Each of those things that people refer to as confusing (.NET Framework, .NET Core, .NET Standard and now standalone .NET) are distinct and separate parts. I think it's more that .NET spent the best part of its existence Windows-only and to transition to being cross-platform requires some hefty changes that necessitated clearly defined stages (windows-only .NET Framework, then early-stage-cross-platform .NET Core 1/2/3 and then end-result .NET 5/6+) and a clear way to write library code targetted such that it can be used by certain cross-sections of those stages (.NET Standard). They've managed the transition well on the technical side of things - as you can see there are plenty of people who are happy with the end result. But it's clear from comments that pop up here that they've really missed the mark when it comes to actually describing the intent behind the whole project, because a surprising number regard it as just an unnecessary exercise in rebranding.
- foepys 5y ago
  The WinForms repo is actually also quite dead. There are fixes here and there are but no major things in the horizon. Apparently they want to focus their efforts on MAUI and WinUI, both of which are not even close to production ready.
  - bartwe 5y ago
    That has been a consistent pattern in .net, where the liked current tech withers on the vine to make place for the new thing. Instead of the new thing proving itself organically.
- ozim 5y ago
  I don't agree that these are real pain points. Try to build desktop app in Ruby or in Python, no one cares about desktop apps. If you want to build native desktop apps you go with QT or something C++ based. .NET branding being confusing is a theoretical problem. When you work day to day with the code you don't care and it does not affect anything I work on. It is not like it somehow affects compilation or some of my code stops working. I use .NET 4.8, .NET standard and .NET Core and now .NET 6 in projects and no problems there.
ozim 5y ago
Who cares about desktop strategy? Have you tried to make a desktop app in Ruby or Python? Java desktop apps are also not having some great approach where stuff was changing through years AWT, Swing, JavaFX. Of course Electron is winning but it is basically a web app wrapped around. That is such a moot argument.
- chrisandchris 5y ago
  > Of course Electron is winning [...] Winnig from the side of the business or developer, but absolutley not as a user. UX ist just so bad with many Electron apps. They feel slow (and usually they are), they miss a lot of OS specific usability. That's not a win-win.
  - ozim 5y ago
    It is winning if we discuss in context of ".NET desktop strategy sucks" and Ruby/Python not having any strategy for cross platform desktop UI.
david_draco 5y ago
Myth 9: .NET development is dominated by Microsoft, not a community Myth 10: if Microsoft decides to kill .NET or go in a new direction, you are screwed (at least more than with the mentioned community-developed open source alternatives). I'd be happy to see these myths dispelled.
ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 5y ago
Is there something confusing about just ".NET" as a brand moving forward? It was annoying at first when we went from .NET Framework -> .NET Core -> .NET in a short period of time, but it's just been .NET since then, which seems fine to me. Nobody in this thread has mentioned WinUI yet (https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml/ https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml/) which makes me think very few people actually know what they're talking about here.

gfody 5y ago

> The .NET desktop strategy has sucked since Build 2011 only if you need cross platform. WPF is pretty good and WinForms still ain't broken. oh you said strategy .. I think the strategy is wait for something to get popular, maybe something will happen with BlazorWebView

ourmandave 5y ago
Winforms is my 9-to-5. But hHow many new official-way-to-do apps have there been? I've lost count. Actually, what's the current one(s)?
foepys 5y ago
Do not start new projects on WPF. WPF is considered done, meaning no bug fixes whatsoever. There is nobody working on it, not a single person.
- int_19h 5y ago
  WPF is still used heavily in Visual Studio.
- lloydatkinson 5y ago
  This is a ridiculous piece of FUD.
  - foepys 5y ago
    You say that it's "FUD" but why is point 1 of the roadmap still "Incorporating .NET Framework servicing fixes into .NET Core 3.1, .NET 5 and .NET 6"? It has said this for years now. Nearly all commits are bot commits updating dependencies, some are to keep the CI process up to date, and all others only fix typos or other strings. 2 months ago somebody fixed a few things but no activity since then. Microsoft is trying to transition WPF into a community project as indicated by the current roadmap and I don't see this meaning anything different that them abandoning WPF for good.

guitarbill 5y ago

Not sure why you're being downvoted, as these are real pain points. As other comments have pointed out, .NET rebranding sucks and is confusing (like .NET Core, .NET Standard, etc.). And the questions around the GUI toolkits don't help. WinForms is the only thing that is (still) consistently developed - kind of.

smcl 5y ago
I do not think it is an issue about (re)branding. Each of those things that people refer to as confusing (.NET Framework, .NET Core, .NET Standard and now standalone .NET) are distinct and separate parts. I think it's more that .NET spent the best part of its existence Windows-only and to transition to being cross-platform requires some hefty changes that necessitated clearly defined stages (windows-only .NET Framework, then early-stage-cross-platform .NET Core 1/2/3 and then end-result .NET 5/6+) and a clear way to write library code targetted such that it can be used by certain cross-sections of those stages (.NET Standard). They've managed the transition well on the technical side of things - as you can see there are plenty of people who are happy with the end result. But it's clear from comments that pop up here that they've really missed the mark when it comes to actually describing the intent behind the whole project, because a surprising number regard it as just an unnecessary exercise in rebranding.
foepys 5y ago
The WinForms repo is actually also quite dead. There are fixes here and there are but no major things in the horizon. Apparently they want to focus their efforts on MAUI and WinUI, both of which are not even close to production ready.
- bartwe 5y ago
  That has been a consistent pattern in .net, where the liked current tech withers on the vine to make place for the new thing. Instead of the new thing proving itself organically.
ozim 5y ago
I don't agree that these are real pain points. Try to build desktop app in Ruby or in Python, no one cares about desktop apps. If you want to build native desktop apps you go with QT or something C++ based. .NET branding being confusing is a theoretical problem. When you work day to day with the code you don't care and it does not affect anything I work on. It is not like it somehow affects compilation or some of my code stops working. I use .NET 4.8, .NET standard and .NET Core and now .NET 6 in projects and no problems there.

ozim 5y ago

Who cares about desktop strategy? Have you tried to make a desktop app in Ruby or Python? Java desktop apps are also not having some great approach where stuff was changing through years AWT, Swing, JavaFX. Of course Electron is winning but it is basically a web app wrapped around. That is such a moot argument.

chrisandchris 5y ago
> Of course Electron is winning [...] Winnig from the side of the business or developer, but absolutley not as a user. UX ist just so bad with many Electron apps. They feel slow (and usually they are), they miss a lot of OS specific usability. That's not a win-win.
- ozim 5y ago
  It is winning if we discuss in context of ".NET desktop strategy sucks" and Ruby/Python not having any strategy for cross platform desktop UI.

david_draco 5y ago

Myth 9: .NET development is dominated by Microsoft, not a community Myth 10: if Microsoft decides to kill .NET or go in a new direction, you are screwed (at least more than with the mentioned community-developed open source alternatives). I'd be happy to see these myths dispelled.

ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 5y ago

Is there something confusing about just ".NET" as a brand moving forward? It was annoying at first when we went from .NET Framework -> .NET Core -> .NET in a short period of time, but it's just been .NET since then, which seems fine to me. Nobody in this thread has mentioned WinUI yet (https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml/ https://microsoft.github.io/microsoft-ui-xaml/) which makes me think very few people actually know what they're talking about here.