Building a perfect wpf developer workstation
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John Cardinal wrote:
All the really good bits of .net are finally coming to fruition.
Did you forget the [sarcasm] tags? Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh Smith -
Gads, and he didn't even mention the friggin' hardware needed to run all that. Why is it so complicated? Why does it require so many half-baked tools and plug-ins and extensions? I get the impression that Microsoft is moving us toward the era of Rube Goldberg programming. Oh wait. We were there already, weren't we? Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh SmithSurely you're joking. Zero items on that list are required to write wpf applications on vista, it's all just tools and components to make life easier. If someone had posted the same list for MFC development back in the day it would have taken a book to list everything that you would need as a tool or add on to accomplish what you can with wpf and vista out of the box. Ahh never mind, your just being a luddite for self gratification and you know it! ;)
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:omfg: "You just specify your UI using XML, it is very simple!"
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us!peterchen wrote:
You just specify your UI using XML
and then you just ram it through an XSLT, and presto... Version N+1
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Surely you're joking. Zero items on that list are required to write wpf applications on vista, it's all just tools and components to make life easier. If someone had posted the same list for MFC development back in the day it would have taken a book to list everything that you would need as a tool or add on to accomplish what you can with wpf and vista out of the box. Ahh never mind, your just being a luddite for self gratification and you know it! ;)
John Cardinal wrote:
Ahh never mind, your just being a luddite
He's not the only one! ;P
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
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:omfg: "You just specify your UI using XML, it is very simple!"
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us!peterchen wrote:
"You just specify your UI using XML, it is very simple!"
Whoever said that was lying. I'm currently writing a WPF designer (basically a Cider clone, but hostable in non-VS applications; and one that doesn't crash every thirty seconds :-D ). WPF is both the most complicated and the most powerful UI framework I've seen. Maybe you can hide from the complexity if you only create Windows and UserControls in the designer (similar to Windows Forms), but once you write a custom control or do anything slightly non-standard, you need a to unterstand WPF well. But then again it's possible to write something like a WPF designer as a pure WPF application - no nasty P/Invokes, WndProc overrides or overlay windows for the drag handles that a Windows Forms designer would need.
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John Cardinal wrote:
Ahh never mind, your just being a luddite
He's not the only one! ;P
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
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I haven't started playing with WPF yet, so my observations may be a bit uneducated. However, just from a glance, this appears to be aimed primarily at developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application". If that's truly the case, I hope it catches on like wildfire. What I find is that these days, out on the streets, there just ain't much work for VC++ folks. That's okay, C# is fun too, but the overwhelming majority of jobs are for web development using ASP.NET rather than client Winforms apps. Because I find web development extremely limiting in comparison with native development, this is obviously less than inspiring to me. So, if WPF will renew interest in non browser development, I say fire it up.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Gads, and he didn't even mention the friggin' hardware needed to run all that. Why is it so complicated? Why does it require so many half-baked tools and plug-ins and extensions? I get the impression that Microsoft is moving us toward the era of Rube Goldberg programming. Oh wait. We were there already, weren't we? Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh SmithIn fairness, having kept up with the Microsoft API of the Week since Visual C++ first came out in the early 90s, I think Mr. Goldberg has probably long since retired due to overwork and exhaustion.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Surely you're joking. Zero items on that list are required to write wpf applications on vista, it's all just tools and components to make life easier. If someone had posted the same list for MFC development back in the day it would have taken a book to list everything that you would need as a tool or add on to accomplish what you can with wpf and vista out of the box. Ahh never mind, your just being a luddite for self gratification and you know it! ;)
John Cardinal wrote:
your just being a luddite for self gratification and you know it!
Aye, there's the truth of the matter! Marc
People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh Smith -
I haven't started playing with WPF yet, so my observations may be a bit uneducated. However, just from a glance, this appears to be aimed primarily at developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application". If that's truly the case, I hope it catches on like wildfire. What I find is that these days, out on the streets, there just ain't much work for VC++ folks. That's okay, C# is fun too, but the overwhelming majority of jobs are for web development using ASP.NET rather than client Winforms apps. Because I find web development extremely limiting in comparison with native development, this is obviously less than inspiring to me. So, if WPF will renew interest in non browser development, I say fire it up.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application".
Actually from my early and not super educated experience with it the one thing I'm really excited about is the ability to build an app once that can be run as a windows client app or through a web browser without changing any code. In theory it could put an end to that debate. The type of web apps I typically need to write are alternative UI's for a winform app and are really heavy so I don't tend to need to do any light asp.net stuff and if this all works as it appears to then it's right up my alley.
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I haven't started playing with WPF yet, so my observations may be a bit uneducated. However, just from a glance, this appears to be aimed primarily at developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application". If that's truly the case, I hope it catches on like wildfire. What I find is that these days, out on the streets, there just ain't much work for VC++ folks. That's okay, C# is fun too, but the overwhelming majority of jobs are for web development using ASP.NET rather than client Winforms apps. Because I find web development extremely limiting in comparison with native development, this is obviously less than inspiring to me. So, if WPF will renew interest in non browser development, I say fire it up.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Because I find web development extremely limiting in comparison with native development, this is obviously less than inspiring to me.
How so?
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I haven't started playing with WPF yet, so my observations may be a bit uneducated. However, just from a glance, this appears to be aimed primarily at developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application". If that's truly the case, I hope it catches on like wildfire. What I find is that these days, out on the streets, there just ain't much work for VC++ folks. That's okay, C# is fun too, but the overwhelming majority of jobs are for web development using ASP.NET rather than client Winforms apps. Because I find web development extremely limiting in comparison with native development, this is obviously less than inspiring to me. So, if WPF will renew interest in non browser development, I say fire it up.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
However, just from a glance, this appears to be aimed primarily at developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application".
Not so. It's quite easy to write web apps using WPF. Josh Smith's even running a competition through his blog. Some of the entries are here :- http://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/xbap-submissions/[^]
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. (*Sample chapter available online*) -
Christopher Duncan wrote:
developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application".
Actually from my early and not super educated experience with it the one thing I'm really excited about is the ability to build an app once that can be run as a windows client app or through a web browser without changing any code. In theory it could put an end to that debate. The type of web apps I typically need to write are alternative UI's for a winform app and are really heavy so I don't tend to need to do any light asp.net stuff and if this all works as it appears to then it's right up my alley.
John Cardinal wrote:
ability to build an app once that can be run as a windows client app or through a web browser without changing any code. In theory it could put an end to that debate.
That does sound interesting, but I don't see how it could escape the trap that cross platform libraries have always encountered: the lowest common denominator. Consequently, it sounds like this scenario would essentially amount to writing a web app (the lowest common denominator) and then spitting out an extremely limited client app. Yuck. On the other hand, if I could write an extremely cool client app using all the horsepower available to me (which is what I miss about web development) and then click a "by the way, generate the best web stuff you're capable of based on this" button and get the web app for free, well, that might be worthwhile. Got any idea which of these two scenarios approaches reality?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Surely you're joking. Zero items on that list are required to write wpf applications on vista, it's all just tools and components to make life easier. If someone had posted the same list for MFC development back in the day it would have taken a book to list everything that you would need as a tool or add on to accomplish what you can with wpf and vista out of the box. Ahh never mind, your just being a luddite for self gratification and you know it! ;)
John Cardinal wrote:
Zero items on that list are required to write wpf applications on vista, it's all just tools and components to make life easier.
To exaggerate: "You don't need Visual Studio for that, you can write this in Assembler!" (and some people really did) I learnt, and did, MFC with VC++ 5 out of the box and MSDN. The list is scary for one reason: How many developers does it take to write the UI for an mid-size windows application? One? A half? zero point one? Or, to put it another way: In one year, how many developers will be available that are able to provide a commercially viable UI (i.e. doesn't fall over when it encounters a Spanish Windows or a non-standard Installation directory), and still have the skills and time to do something else? And how long will their skills be Industry Standard? Don't get me wrong: WPF looks cool. But turning book pages and slightly rotated note sheets won't get me one customer more. Still, people expect a "standard windows application", and if WPF raises the bar to high, we might be forced to be luddites for the sake of a product.
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us! -
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Because I find web development extremely limiting in comparison with native development, this is obviously less than inspiring to me.
How so?
A native app is capable of accessing the full Windows SDK. Furthermore, if you're using C/C++, you have complete control of the box, down to twiddling bits at the hardware level. In short, there are no limits. As a developer, you have the maximum horsepower available to you. In contrast, a web browser app is constrained to the comparatively few things that HTTP is capable of handling. That's not to say that there aren't cool things about web sites - I'm typing this on one right now. However, in terms of developing software, it is without question an extremely limited environment in comparison. It's also worth mentioning that my intent is not to offer disrespect to web developers. I just find it personally frustrating to have worked for so many years with the most powerful tools available, only to find myself in an industry that now insists on working with a subset of the power that sits on my desktop. If web stuff was all I'd ever done it wouldn't be such a distraction, but it's hard going backwards.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
However, just from a glance, this appears to be aimed primarily at developing client apps rather than the dreaded browser based "application".
Not so. It's quite easy to write web apps using WPF. Josh Smith's even running a competition through his blog. Some of the entries are here :- http://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/xbap-submissions/[^]
Regards, Nish
Nish’s thoughts on MFC, C++/CLI and .NET (my blog)
Currently working on C++/CLI in Action for Manning Publications. (*Sample chapter available online*)Thanks - I just went there to check some of them out. However, since I'm only running XP, I was immediately prompted to "download the .NET framework" (presumably .NET 3.0). Doesn't this kinda negate the big thing about the web? I mean, what are our Apple or Linux brethren going to do if you have to be running a Microsoft operating system to use a web page? Will Paul tear the flowers out of his hair when he finds he can't bring up a web site on his beloved Mac? :) Or perhaps I'm not understanding something fundamental here. My knowledge of the WPF stuff is really quite limited at the moment.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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John Cardinal wrote:
ability to build an app once that can be run as a windows client app or through a web browser without changing any code. In theory it could put an end to that debate.
That does sound interesting, but I don't see how it could escape the trap that cross platform libraries have always encountered: the lowest common denominator. Consequently, it sounds like this scenario would essentially amount to writing a web app (the lowest common denominator) and then spitting out an extremely limited client app. Yuck. On the other hand, if I could write an extremely cool client app using all the horsepower available to me (which is what I miss about web development) and then click a "by the way, generate the best web stuff you're capable of based on this" button and get the web app for free, well, that might be worthwhile. Got any idea which of these two scenarios approaches reality?
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
From my understanding wpf is just wpf, one way you are running it within windows as full trust the other you are running it from "within" the browser but in reality you are still running it in windows just in a "sandbox" of partial trust without any installation being required. WPF/e on the other hand I know almost nothing about but it's a 3rd technology for running strictly as html / javascript for non windows client browsers and my hope is it's more like scenario two in your post, but info is so sketchy on it at the moment I'm just not looking at it in any more detail until I get through the wpf book I'm on now. For my customers they don't really care about the technology for the most part, they perceive it as being web accessible or running on their work station so despite the fact that it's essentially the same code running it's how easy it is to use from either method that they will care about. If we offer a UI that is really rich, responsive and powerful and can be accessed via web browser or in windows and is essentially the same application so no learning curve if you know one you know them both then they will more than likely be happy with that.
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From my understanding wpf is just wpf, one way you are running it within windows as full trust the other you are running it from "within" the browser but in reality you are still running it in windows just in a "sandbox" of partial trust without any installation being required. WPF/e on the other hand I know almost nothing about but it's a 3rd technology for running strictly as html / javascript for non windows client browsers and my hope is it's more like scenario two in your post, but info is so sketchy on it at the moment I'm just not looking at it in any more detail until I get through the wpf book I'm on now. For my customers they don't really care about the technology for the most part, they perceive it as being web accessible or running on their work station so despite the fact that it's essentially the same code running it's how easy it is to use from either method that they will care about. If we offer a UI that is really rich, responsive and powerful and can be accessed via web browser or in windows and is essentially the same application so no learning curve if you know one you know them both then they will more than likely be happy with that.
John Cardinal wrote:
you are still running it in windows just in a "sandbox" of partial trust without any installation being required.
Well, this coupled with looking at the link to Josh's contest from Nish (below) starts to paint a picture. It sounds like something similar to the ActiveX paradigm where you can do a lot of cool things hosted in a web browser if you happen to be on IE running Windows. That's pretty cool if you're running on a corporate intranet as it gives you more horsepower. Doesn't sound like something you would use for a public Internet web site, though. The Apple and Linux guys wouldn't be able to access your pages.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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Yeesh, everybody's a critic. Well, i think it's a good list, and thank you for posting it. I have no use for it, but that doesn't keep me from recognizing the goodness of it. Just one question (and i apologize if it's a stupid one...): In this paragraph,
XamlPadX, Kaxaml and XamlCruncher: three enhanced alternatives to the XamlPad tool that ships in the SDK. Each have their strengths: XamlPadX has some nice add-ons and is based on the XamlPad codebase, Kaxaml is great for demos and has good tab / indent support and XamlCruncher has high-quality source code available.
Is he recommending the installation of three glorified text-editors? Only one of which supports proper indentation? :~
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It appears that everybody is under the impression that I approve of the documentation. You probably also blame Ken Burns for supporting slavery.
--Raymond Chen on MSDN
