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This comment thread baffles me. Java guy here. I've had some limited professional exposure to ASP.NET web apps over the past five years, but have really taken

This comment thread baffles me. Java guy here. I've had some limited professional exposure to ASP.NET web apps over the past five years, but have really taken an interest in diving into the Microsoft stack over the past year or two since all of the cross-platform activity started happening. I'm mostly interested in ASP.NET, as I do little to no development in the desktop or native mobile app space, but I've been interested in at least learning more about those areas. My understanding has been the following: [1] WinForms is a very ancient framework for writing traditional desktop applications. It inspired ASP.NET's WebForms, an ancient framework for writing web apps. Both are still used by greybeards, but are effectively considered deprecated legacy tech. [2] WPF is the current standard for writing traditional desktop applications. It uses XAML markup files to describe a GUI, with each XAML file being backed by a C# class storing the event-handling logic. [3] "Metro" and "Windows 10 Universal" are emerging frameworks. Trying to achieve some level of convergence between desktop and mobile app development. Pushed hard by Microsoft, but no one cares because there are few users of the Windows Store or Windows Phones. I am accustomed to seeing "WinForms is dead" Internet discussions, with people chiming in to point out that it still lives on in many shops. However, I've never seen a "WPF is dead" thread before. Are you guys saying this because you're moving on to "Metro / Windows 10 Universal" even for desktop application development? I don't know anyone going in that direction yet, but then again Hacker News is a bit of a startup niche that poorly represents the technology industry as a whole. DISCLAIMER I haven't actually watched this video yet... it's almost an hour long, and I'll have to do so later. A "TL;DR" would be cool, but I'm assuming that the gist is XAML still having a role within these newer frameworks that I haven't explored yet.

sudioStudio64 11y ago
People are weird. XAML is very much alive and part of the new universal app model. The have also extended the HTML and JS app model where any website can basically declare the capabilities they want to use and be published as an app in the store. They give you some boilerplate to detect that you are running in an app host so that you know when you can call system features like the camera or whatever. It's literally never been easier to write a windows app...
jeswin 11y ago
I have 15 years of professional experience on the Microsoft platform. I'll tell you why people are pissed. Especially among MS developers, there are many people who don't read read HN or any other tech industry site. They rely or depend on MS to provide them with career advancing technical advice, but for the last eight years they have been consistently let down. Microsoft's preferred flavor changes every two years; Win Forms, SilverLight, WPF, Html5, now Universal Windows Apps. Add Metro-flavors of some of these. This isn't working, at least for Business Users. Customers are switching from their Native Windows apps (often Win Forms, rarely WPF) to HTML, iOS and Android. Businesses will not build another Windows platform Native app; although some consumer apps might be written. Developers are seeing their hard-learned technology go down the drain. That was time they could have learnt something new or spent with family. Developers who are in IT/Software for just the job/money find in relatively difficult to just go and learn the web. Many of them could have done it 10 years back (when they were younger), they can't do that so easily now. The last time MS' advice helped was when they had an iron hold on the industry (aka the Monopoly). Here's some advice for MS: Build on HTML, perhaps partner with Mozilla. See if you can get it to work as fluidly as Native. They still have perhaps the most formidable research team out there among Software Companies. Closed, Windows Native apps are over.
- StevePerkins 11y ago
  > Especially among MS developers, there are many people who > don't read read HN or any other tech industry site. They > rely or depend on MS to provide them with career advancing > technical advice, but for the last eight years they have been > consistently let down. Microsoft's preferred flavor changes > every two years... Ahh... thanks, this makes sense. Things are somewhat similar on the Java side with Oracle, but not quite. In my opinion, the biggest contributing factor to the strength of Java's ecosystem is that the community has a healthy level of distrust toward Oracle. Oracle promotes new things all the time. Sometimes they catch on and get widely adopted. Sometimes the community by and large completely ignores them, and uses another third-party framework instead (e.g. Spring). Oracle is begrudgingly respected, but I wouldn't say that their word rises to the level of "default" in the Java community. Microsoft guys seem to have much tighter bond with the mothership, and put a great deal more trust in Redmond's agenda. They are much less likely to explore alternatives that come from outside of Microsoft (e.g. I see a lot small microservices for which Nancy makes a lot of sense, but which are still built on ASP.NET "just because"). This causes the wider ecosystem of alternatives to be much weaker than that of Java and other common stacks. I'm very excited about the future, as C# is a much better language than Java, and Microsoft is at least saying all the right things lately about wanting to see more innovation from the community and less blind reliance on Microsoft. It will be interesting to see whether Microsoft can attract enough newcomers like me to offset the alienated longstanding crowd.
jasode 11y ago
>However, I've never seen a "WPF is dead" thread before. Unfortunately, the word "dead" causes people to talk right past each other because it has 2 meanings. More on that later. First, there has been lots of discussion around "WPF is dead" since that soundbite was made popular by former Microsoft PM Scott Barnes back in September 2010[1]. Predictably, Microsoft denied it with typical business-speak (e.g. "we're still committed to WPF, yada yada") but Scott did call its demise correctly. You see, you have to understand Microsoft's (and most companies') modus operandi to notice how something actually "dies". They don't "kill it" by lighting up a neon sign and issuing A Big Press Release exclaiming, "We just killed WPF and you will thanks us later!" The way companies kill products is to not give it first class attention such as adding new cutting edge enhancements and diverting resources away from it. It's very rare for a company to plainly state that they will abandon a technology. (Adobe publicly stating they will prioritize HTML5 over Flash would be a rare example.) As for the word "dead" in technology discussions, it has 2 meanings: #1 "dead" -- as in no longer the preferred, preeminent, first class technology; publishers no longer release new books about it; it is not updated for the latest operating systems or hardware platforms (e.g. iPhones, etc). #2 "dead" -- as in formal official definitive statement from vendor that it is abandoned, not supported, and nobody anywhere uses it anymore. Almost always, when people proclaim "X is dead", they're talking about definition #1, and the people who argue against it are talking about definition #2. If someone says "Latin is dead", they're talking about definition #1. It means that today, Hollywood movies will have actors speaking in English, not Latin. The latest Stephen King novel will be English not Latin. We're not using Latin to type out comments on HN. Latin has been "dead" for several hundred years. The detractors countering with "Latin is not dead" are using definition #2 and will say they just saw a blog post exclaiming "carpe diem!" and a mathematics proof concluding with Latin phrase "QED". High school and colleges still offer classes to teach Latin. That's the ongoing sorry state of discussions around the word "dead". The 2 camps just talk past each other and perpetuates the endless cycle of disagreements. In any case, just like Latin is "dead and also not dead", "WPF is dead and not dead" depending on what the context is. [1]https://twitter.com/MossyBlog/status/23980976666 https://twitter.com/MossyBlog/status/23980976666

sudioStudio64 11y ago

People are weird. XAML is very much alive and part of the new universal app model. The have also extended the HTML and JS app model where any website can basically declare the capabilities they want to use and be published as an app in the store. They give you some boilerplate to detect that you are running in an app host so that you know when you can call system features like the camera or whatever. It's literally never been easier to write a windows app...

jeswin 11y ago

I have 15 years of professional experience on the Microsoft platform. I'll tell you why people are pissed. Especially among MS developers, there are many people who don't read read HN or any other tech industry site. They rely or depend on MS to provide them with career advancing technical advice, but for the last eight years they have been consistently let down. Microsoft's preferred flavor changes every two years; Win Forms, SilverLight, WPF, Html5, now Universal Windows Apps. Add Metro-flavors of some of these. This isn't working, at least for Business Users. Customers are switching from their Native Windows apps (often Win Forms, rarely WPF) to HTML, iOS and Android. Businesses will not build another Windows platform Native app; although some consumer apps might be written. Developers are seeing their hard-learned technology go down the drain. That was time they could have learnt something new or spent with family. Developers who are in IT/Software for just the job/money find in relatively difficult to just go and learn the web. Many of them could have done it 10 years back (when they were younger), they can't do that so easily now. The last time MS' advice helped was when they had an iron hold on the industry (aka the Monopoly). Here's some advice for MS: Build on HTML, perhaps partner with Mozilla. See if you can get it to work as fluidly as Native. They still have perhaps the most formidable research team out there among Software Companies. Closed, Windows Native apps are over.

StevePerkins 11y ago
> Especially among MS developers, there are many people who > don't read read HN or any other tech industry site. They > rely or depend on MS to provide them with career advancing > technical advice, but for the last eight years they have been > consistently let down. Microsoft's preferred flavor changes > every two years... Ahh... thanks, this makes sense. Things are somewhat similar on the Java side with Oracle, but not quite. In my opinion, the biggest contributing factor to the strength of Java's ecosystem is that the community has a healthy level of distrust toward Oracle. Oracle promotes new things all the time. Sometimes they catch on and get widely adopted. Sometimes the community by and large completely ignores them, and uses another third-party framework instead (e.g. Spring). Oracle is begrudgingly respected, but I wouldn't say that their word rises to the level of "default" in the Java community. Microsoft guys seem to have much tighter bond with the mothership, and put a great deal more trust in Redmond's agenda. They are much less likely to explore alternatives that come from outside of Microsoft (e.g. I see a lot small microservices for which Nancy makes a lot of sense, but which are still built on ASP.NET "just because"). This causes the wider ecosystem of alternatives to be much weaker than that of Java and other common stacks. I'm very excited about the future, as C# is a much better language than Java, and Microsoft is at least saying all the right things lately about wanting to see more innovation from the community and less blind reliance on Microsoft. It will be interesting to see whether Microsoft can attract enough newcomers like me to offset the alienated longstanding crowd.

jasode 11y ago

>However, I've never seen a "WPF is dead" thread before. Unfortunately, the word "dead" causes people to talk right past each other because it has 2 meanings. More on that later. First, there has been lots of discussion around "WPF is dead" since that soundbite was made popular by former Microsoft PM Scott Barnes back in September 2010[1]. Predictably, Microsoft denied it with typical business-speak (e.g. "we're still committed to WPF, yada yada") but Scott did call its demise correctly. You see, you have to understand Microsoft's (and most companies') modus operandi to notice how something actually "dies". They don't "kill it" by lighting up a neon sign and issuing A Big Press Release exclaiming, "We just killed WPF and you will thanks us later!" The way companies kill products is to not give it first class attention such as adding new cutting edge enhancements and diverting resources away from it. It's very rare for a company to plainly state that they will abandon a technology. (Adobe publicly stating they will prioritize HTML5 over Flash would be a rare example.) As for the word "dead" in technology discussions, it has 2 meanings: #1 "dead" -- as in no longer the preferred, preeminent, first class technology; publishers no longer release new books about it; it is not updated for the latest operating systems or hardware platforms (e.g. iPhones, etc). #2 "dead" -- as in formal official definitive statement from vendor that it is abandoned, not supported, and nobody anywhere uses it anymore. Almost always, when people proclaim "X is dead", they're talking about definition #1, and the people who argue against it are talking about definition #2. If someone says "Latin is dead", they're talking about definition #1. It means that today, Hollywood movies will have actors speaking in English, not Latin. The latest Stephen King novel will be English not Latin. We're not using Latin to type out comments on HN. Latin has been "dead" for several hundred years. The detractors countering with "Latin is not dead" are using definition #2 and will say they just saw a blog post exclaiming "carpe diem!" and a mathematics proof concluding with Latin phrase "QED". High school and colleges still offer classes to teach Latin. That's the ongoing sorry state of discussions around the word "dead". The 2 camps just talk past each other and perpetuates the endless cycle of disagreements. In any case, just like Latin is "dead and also not dead", "WPF is dead and not dead" depending on what the context is. [1]https://twitter.com/MossyBlog/status/23980976666 https://twitter.com/MossyBlog/status/23980976666