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  3. Is Winforms dead ?

Is Winforms dead ?

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  • pkfoxP Offline
    pkfoxP Offline
    pkfox
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

    When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

    M J N J B 13 Replies Last reply
    0
    • pkfoxP pkfox

      Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

      When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

      J Offline
      J Offline
      Johnny J
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Winforms is not dead yet, and it won't be for a long time, but I think that WPF is now the preferred way to go. I don't know how long that will hold on, though. Silverlight died as an infant, and if Microsoft could get their way, the classic desktop as you know it would be gone in a jiffy! :sigh: If you ask me, it will never be possibly to completely get rid of the desktop, because there will always be applications that are so complicated and heavy that trying to do a windows phone app that can do the same is impossible and/or will result in a program that is not user friendly at all. But then again: When has Microsoft ever cared about that either? As a conservative prick who prefers locally installed programs, I fear for the future. Thank god I'm not going to be working with it for more than 20 years more.

      Why can't I be applicable like John? - Me, April 2011
      -----
      Beidh ceol, caint agus craic againn - Seán Bán Breathnach
      -----
      Da mihi sis crustum Etruscum cum omnibus in eo!
      -----
      Just because a thing is new don’t mean that it’s better - Will Rogers, September 4, 1932

      pkfoxP 1 Reply Last reply
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      • pkfoxP pkfox

        Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

        When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

        M Offline
        M Offline
        Marco Bertschi
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        IMHO WinForms is not completly dead, yet. But to save your *ss, learn WPF. Afterwards it will be easy to get over to MFC, MVC and Silverlight. However, in the end it depends what you want to do on your day job (Web apps, web services, client applications or micro controller programming?).

        **Marco Bertschi


        Twitter | Articles | G+**

        pkfoxP realJSOPR R 3 Replies Last reply
        0
        • J Johnny J

          Winforms is not dead yet, and it won't be for a long time, but I think that WPF is now the preferred way to go. I don't know how long that will hold on, though. Silverlight died as an infant, and if Microsoft could get their way, the classic desktop as you know it would be gone in a jiffy! :sigh: If you ask me, it will never be possibly to completely get rid of the desktop, because there will always be applications that are so complicated and heavy that trying to do a windows phone app that can do the same is impossible and/or will result in a program that is not user friendly at all. But then again: When has Microsoft ever cared about that either? As a conservative prick who prefers locally installed programs, I fear for the future. Thank god I'm not going to be working with it for more than 20 years more.

          Why can't I be applicable like John? - Me, April 2011
          -----
          Beidh ceol, caint agus craic againn - Seán Bán Breathnach
          -----
          Da mihi sis crustum Etruscum cum omnibus in eo!
          -----
          Just because a thing is new don’t mean that it’s better - Will Rogers, September 4, 1932

          pkfoxP Offline
          pkfoxP Offline
          pkfox
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          Hi John, thanks for that, I too am a conservative prick and don't want to see *everything webised*. In-house systems still have their place without having to *share* everything on farcebook or twitter. I personally would not like my company business on FB or Twitter.

          When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

          W J R 3 Replies Last reply
          0
          • M Marco Bertschi

            IMHO WinForms is not completly dead, yet. But to save your *ss, learn WPF. Afterwards it will be easy to get over to MFC, MVC and Silverlight. However, in the end it depends what you want to do on your day job (Web apps, web services, client applications or micro controller programming?).

            **Marco Bertschi


            Twitter | Articles | G+**

            pkfoxP Offline
            pkfoxP Offline
            pkfox
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            Hi Marco, any recommended reading to get up to speed on WPF ?

            When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

            P 1 Reply Last reply
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            • pkfoxP pkfox

              Hi Marco, any recommended reading to get up to speed on WPF ?

              When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

              P Offline
              P Offline
              Pete OHanlon
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              Josh Smith's articles. Sacha Barber's articles. Oh, and Adam Nathan's WPF Unleashed.

              I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
              CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier

              M J S pkfoxP 4 Replies Last reply
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              • P Pete OHanlon

                Josh Smith's articles. Sacha Barber's articles. Oh, and Adam Nathan's WPF Unleashed.

                I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
                CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier

                M Offline
                M Offline
                Marco Bertschi
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                Linkies: -> Sacha Barber's articles[^] -> Josh Smith's articles[^] -> WPF unleashed by Adam Nathan[^] cheers, Marco

                **Marco Bertschi


                Twitter | Articles | G+**

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • pkfoxP pkfox

                  Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

                  When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                  N Offline
                  N Offline
                  NormDroid
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  I think Microsoft are dead give it a fews years and the desktop will be a distant memory.

                  Software Kinetics - Dependable Software news

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • P Pete OHanlon

                    Josh Smith's articles. Sacha Barber's articles. Oh, and Adam Nathan's WPF Unleashed.

                    I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
                    CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier

                    J Offline
                    J Offline
                    Jon Clare
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    Second those choices, and WPF Control Development Unleashed is also a decent read once you've covered WPF Unleashed.

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • pkfoxP pkfox

                      Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

                      When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                      J Offline
                      J Offline
                      jim lahey
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      It's not dead yet. But it should be if you've ever had to develop or maintain a property grid in WinForms. Never before have I created so many classes that have collectively done so little.

                      S 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • pkfoxP pkfox

                        Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

                        When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                        B Offline
                        B Offline
                        BillWoodruff
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        I believe WinForms will be widely used for years to come, but, not to create the latest winking-blinking-flashing thing-in-the=cloud that needs a browser to feed, and dance. Think "line-of-business," as well as applications. You could speculate about WPF being either dead, or in deep-freeze, and that XAML lives on. Which I regard kind of like a baby dying at birth, and somehow the placenta lives and grows-up believing it's a person. What I read is that SilverLight is now deprecated, at the very least. However, I note that CP's greatly respected Pete O'Hanlon has hinted on CP that there are important new developments with WPF "in the works." You could interpret the mess of uncertainty that MS created in the WPF, and WinForms, SilverLight, communities, prior to the roll-out of Windows 8, the possible failure of the Win 8 RT hardware gambit, the hard-landing of Modern/Metro (exit Sinofksy), as being a phase of mutation, as Sauron of Redmond morphs to wage global war against Google, and Apple, and their spawn in the form of iWhatever, and Android. The questions I ask in listening for heartbeats in the future's software is: is it inevitable that the software industry changes to requiring a purchaser to go through a company store (kiss 30% goodbye), necessary that end-users have to subscribe, and actually may be locked out of editing their existing files if they don't continually subscribe (hello, Adobe)? And, must every application use the Cloud, support some form of social-networking ? If only we had, years ago, WinForms equipped with a first-class retained mode 2D drawing system that enabled vector re-sizing and graphics like WPF does. If only the binding model in WinForms had evolved to be more powerful (equivalent to what can be done in XAML), and less awkward to use. I'm trying to stop assuming anything, and I am waiting to hear from Pete, the WPF Disciples, Marc, and other prophets on CP about the future of WPF, and that strange throwback, the equivalent of assembly language for UI, XAML. If only ... :) Bill

                        “Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection." Ed

                        S 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • pkfoxP pkfox

                          Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

                          When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                          A Offline
                          A Offline
                          AlphaDeltaTheta
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          It looks so... I have slated WinForms, WPF is definitely the way to go... It won't be long enough when, everything in windows will become managed... WP8 is already out there, WPF with MVVM and Data Binding and numerous other things, greatly simplifies app coding and maintainance. So a great :thumbsup: for WPF!

                          R 1 Reply Last reply
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                          • pkfoxP pkfox

                            Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

                            When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                            D Offline
                            D Offline
                            Dave Kerr
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            WinForms has its place, but I find generally now-adays that I use it less and less even for utility apps, I've just got faster at knocking out WPF. In terms of desktop development, learning WPF is going to be pretty useful - it's widely used and performs well, it simplifies a lot of typical tasks. But it's interesting to take a look at what big fat apps are built in: Visual Studio: C++ (Win32 SDK), COM, WPF Microsoft Office: No idea. Guessing lots of C++/Win32 SDK and some WPF? Anyone else have any ideas? Photoshop: Guessing C++/Win32 Come to think of it, what are most large-scale desktop apps written in? My assumption is C++ but this may be totally wrong...

                            My Blog: www.dwmkerr.com My Charity: Children's Homes Nepal

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                            • pkfoxP pkfox

                              Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

                              When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                              L Offline
                              L Offline
                              Lost User
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              What does "dead" even mean these days? Technologies are declared "dead" while tons of people are still using them - like WinForms.

                              pkfoxP 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • P Pete OHanlon

                                Josh Smith's articles. Sacha Barber's articles. Oh, and Adam Nathan's WPF Unleashed.

                                I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
                                CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier

                                S Offline
                                S Offline
                                Septimus Hedgehog
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                Pete O'Hanlon wrote:

                                Adam Nathan's WPF Unleashed

                                I stalled working through this book for some reason. Maybe my approach was wrong but I was kinda hoping the code samples would all work in isolation. I'm not saying his book is bad but I couldn't work out if it was a cookbook of WPF topics or something you could work through cover-to-cover building up as you progressed? A good while back there was some thought that WPF itself was "doomed", in the sense smarter people than me said, "Go west, young man, there's HTML5 and CS3 in them thar hills." Was that viewpoint correct or has the anti-WPF camp mellowed?

                                If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                                P 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • P Pete OHanlon

                                  Josh Smith's articles. Sacha Barber's articles. Oh, and Adam Nathan's WPF Unleashed.

                                  I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
                                  CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier

                                  pkfoxP Offline
                                  pkfoxP Offline
                                  pkfox
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  Cheers Pete

                                  When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                                  1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • pkfoxP pkfox

                                    Apologies if this has been asked before - but I have been working in a cave for quite a few years and have just escaped. If Winforms is indeed dead what has taken over ? I hear WPF,MVC and a myriad of other acronyms but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I know I'm setting myself up for a torrent of sarcasm but this is still a good site for advice . Many thanks for reading this.

                                    When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                                    A Offline
                                    A Offline
                                    AlexCode
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    You don't kill something just because some hype appears. As ASP.net won't ever die just because MVC was resurrected and applied on top of it. M$ is pushing WPF to be the "new" Windows Forms default but I'm sure they won't ever stop supporting the "ancient" form, it simply doesn't make sense. WPF might be cool but compared to Windows Forms existing software it's just a drop in the ocean. And... MFC's still exist don't they?! :)

                                    S 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • J jim lahey

                                      It's not dead yet. But it should be if you've ever had to develop or maintain a property grid in WinForms. Never before have I created so many classes that have collectively done so little.

                                      S Offline
                                      S Offline
                                      Septimus Hedgehog
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #18

                                      Preach it brother. A previous developer where I work thought it would be a really good idea to actually hand-roll a grid. I've seen some cheap, nasty, sinister code before, but to see business logic meshed into owner-drawn graphics to paint the columns and rows was simply the worst I've ever seen. I'm sure he thought he was Top Gun but what he produced was a Rabbit's Bottom Pellet. Code like that gives WinForms a bad name.

                                      If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

                                      R 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • L Lost User

                                        What does "dead" even mean these days? Technologies are declared "dead" while tons of people are still using them - like WinForms.

                                        pkfoxP Offline
                                        pkfoxP Offline
                                        pkfox
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #19

                                        Good stuff - thanks to you all - and keep em comin

                                        When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - Hunter S Thompson RIP

                                        1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • A AlexCode

                                          You don't kill something just because some hype appears. As ASP.net won't ever die just because MVC was resurrected and applied on top of it. M$ is pushing WPF to be the "new" Windows Forms default but I'm sure they won't ever stop supporting the "ancient" form, it simply doesn't make sense. WPF might be cool but compared to Windows Forms existing software it's just a drop in the ocean. And... MFC's still exist don't they?! :)

                                          S Offline
                                          S Offline
                                          Septimus Hedgehog
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #20

                                          AlexCode wrote:

                                          but I'm sure they won't ever stop supporting the "ancient"

                                          That's exactly what they said about Cobol and Fortran. The placenta is alive and by all accounts still going strong despite the nay-sayers trying to slay them. There's room for them all at the Great Development Banqueting Table. I've worked with many engineers in the past. Some of the civil and mechanical engineers really didn't give a hoot what language, platform, or design was used. As long as it worked is all they wanted.

                                          If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.

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