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.NET and WPF are pretty much the way Windows applications are built these days. Metro just allows some other ways of also building the UI component (with HTML5

.NET and WPF are pretty much the way Windows applications are built these days. Metro just allows some other ways of also building the UI component (with HTML5 and JS). His fears are baseless...

jwarzech 15y ago
From what I have seen I don't know if WPF is at the adoption that Microsoft had hoped for. There is still a lot of development done in WinForms and a lot of that work has been migrated to ASP.net for years. Some of the reasons I've seen quite a few devs not adopt WPF: - XAML a.k.a. super wordy xml? Why not just drag-and-drop-click-events - MVVM Template, Caliburn, Prism, or just do things how we did in WinForms? - Expression Blend makes sense in Microsoft's vision but how many small shops have dedicated UI designers? - We are moving everything to the web already why would we do another desktop app? Of course I say that as someone who actually quite enjoyed doing WPF development for three years.
teyc 15y ago
From a developer's point of view there is nothing to do but just move on. From an organisational point, Microsoft has made it very expensive for people who wish to stay on the same stack. The reason is MS needs to kill technologies in order for their new ones to gain critical mass. This has been done multiple times since VFP, VB6. The problem is no one has the money to redevelop the same app multiple times. Sometimes, developers are just fodder in the scheme of things. Of course people will argue that the stacks themselves are still going to be around, but the ecosystem dies. No one produces new components for VB6 anymore. It used to be a thriving one. Another is the absence of performance fixes for WPF (search for Scott Barnes' (ex-MS Silverlight PM) rants on WPF). I've hit one with a Silverlight Grid which freezes with 1000 rows on MSIE due to assistive technology kicking in. These are never going to be addressed when a stack is put on ice.
- josephcooney 15y ago
  There are a bunch of new things for WPF in the .NET 4.5 release, including performance fixes.
  - teyc 15y ago
    Yeah, I saw that. I was pleasantly surprised.

.NET and WPF are pretty much the way Windows applications are built these days. Metro just allows some other ways of also building the UI component (with HTML5 and JS). His fears are baseless...

jwarzech 15y ago

From what I have seen I don't know if WPF is at the adoption that Microsoft had hoped for. There is still a lot of development done in WinForms and a lot of that work has been migrated to ASP.net for years. Some of the reasons I've seen quite a few devs not adopt WPF: - XAML a.k.a. super wordy xml? Why not just drag-and-drop-click-events - MVVM Template, Caliburn, Prism, or just do things how we did in WinForms? - Expression Blend makes sense in Microsoft's vision but how many small shops have dedicated UI designers? - We are moving everything to the web already why would we do another desktop app? Of course I say that as someone who actually quite enjoyed doing WPF development for three years.

teyc 15y ago

From a developer's point of view there is nothing to do but just move on. From an organisational point, Microsoft has made it very expensive for people who wish to stay on the same stack. The reason is MS needs to kill technologies in order for their new ones to gain critical mass. This has been done multiple times since VFP, VB6. The problem is no one has the money to redevelop the same app multiple times. Sometimes, developers are just fodder in the scheme of things. Of course people will argue that the stacks themselves are still going to be around, but the ecosystem dies. No one produces new components for VB6 anymore. It used to be a thriving one. Another is the absence of performance fixes for WPF (search for Scott Barnes' (ex-MS Silverlight PM) rants on WPF). I've hit one with a Silverlight Grid which freezes with 1000 rows on MSIE due to assistive technology kicking in. These are never going to be addressed when a stack is put on ice.

josephcooney 15y ago
There are a bunch of new things for WPF in the .NET 4.5 release, including performance fixes.
- teyc 15y ago
  Yeah, I saw that. I was pleasantly surprised.