WPF is the future, get over it, post of the day - “Are desktop developers ignoring WPF at their peril?”
Living in the Tech Avalanche Generation - Are desktop developers ignoring WPF at their peril?
“So is 2010 the year when WPF finally starts to make the big-time? Having spent some time now working with the new desktop framework, I find it unlikely that I will find a compelling enough reason to choose Windows Forms for a desktop UI technology choice again.
So what’s holding it (WPF) back? I have read and listened to a lot of stuff online suggesting it’s so complex that it’s turning people off the idea. So what about the issue of so called complexity? …
…
Here is what I advise: don’t be afraid of the technology. If you ever developed desktop applications in the past and considered yourself capable in designing a good user experience, then don’t buy into the scare mongering and be prepared to jump off the cliff.
I don’t doubt that there will be some small percentage of software teams that will bring on a dedicated designer(s) but I would hate to think that the small development teams out there will be put off venturing out into the brave new world. Yes there is a lot of complexity (particularly in WPF) and the learning curve is certainly not shallow by any means, but nothing good in life is easy.
…”
The title of this post struck me as soon as I saw it. I personally believe that WinForm’s days are numbered, in the many hundreds I’m sure, but numbered none the less.
What I find “interesting” is the resistance to WPF. I’m facing it daily and am having a very difficult time getting the message across as to why it’s important to our professional careers, development practices, applications and users. Sure it’s not perfect, and there’s a learning curve, but that was the same story when we started with WinForms. Get over it! sigh…
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that VS2010/.Net 4 will be the WPF watershed release that I hope it will be.
[Now to step up and try to drive WPF into those small areas where I have a little bit of control… Am I willing to walk the walk? I’m willing to try…]
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3 comments:
Greg,
well i have a very little wpf app that i'm playing around with (one window, some controls) - and that little app has a startup time that dwarfs the one of our real app.
i'm just afraid going to wpf will increase the startup time of my "real" up to the >1 minute range...
WM_MY0.02$
-thomas woelfer
I think WPF is awesome. The problem I have is that it is virtually impossible to make an app that is even as good looking as a crappy Winforms app without Expression. My employer will not foot the bill for Expression, so our apps are vomitous. I don't see it being a feasible option for us until the VS Designer is capable of making a decent looking application.
Have to agree with the other two commenters. WPF's performance can be appauling even with sample applications. And Cider in vs2008 was horrendous. There's just too many small companies out there with bosses who couldn't justify purchasing VS and then Blend on top of it when the app could be designed in WinForms. I think it'll be another couple of years before we start seeing it become more mainstream. Personally I think the technology is great, but if I was to tell my Boss I wanted to replace our WinForm application with WPF and tell him there's roughly 50% of our existing customers who may need a hardware upgrade to use it, I think he'd tell me where to go :)
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