Laurent, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I wouldn't exactly classify WPF as dead, but rather, the walking dead.
I attended those sessions at //Build/, and what I heard was "we don't have anything new for you, but I hear you saying not to give up yet, so, you tell us, what should we look at doing with WPF"? That doesn't sound like a vibrant, living bit of tech. That just sounds like popular tech going through it's death throes.
Regardless, though, even if there's strong support from Microsoft (evidence, please) and lots of new stuff coming (again, evidence, please!), it doesn't much matter. WPF is still the walking dead. It has to be. It's a desktop technology, and the desktop is dead. Yeah, I know, that's a hard pill to swallow as well, but sit back and take an honest look around. Can you name a single new commercial application for the desktop that's been released in the last 5 years? How about a major update to any of the existing applications? Outside of the developer community, do you see anyone excited about using the desktop? No, consumers have moved on to mobile devices.
Even businesses are moving on. Some to mobile, but most "to the cloud" with web apps. It's becoming harder and harder to sell management on any kind of desktop solution.
Microsoft has acknowledged this. They are moving to mobile and to the cloud in very big ways. They're making Windows into a mobile OS and are giving it away for free!
Is there still some demand for the desktop and specifically for WPF? You bet. I write new code in WPF every single day. But you know what? There's still people writing new code in COBOL on Mainframes, and yet we've been calling them dead for 20 years now. That's the future of WPF and the desktop. Realistically, where I'm at, I'll be lucky if I'm still writing new WPF code within two years. I could move on to another employer and probably continue working with WPF for another 10 years or so. But I'd be in the same position as COBOL developers have been in since the 90s, out of demand.
I guess I'm now an "old fart" in the field. It's a bit depressing. All I'm really hoping for at this point is that at a minimum I don't have to start doing web development. I'm still hopeful I can continue coding in .NET, especially after the announcements at //Build/, but frankly, even that is in some danger. Lucky for me, I'm good at learning new languages and APIs, and actually enjoy doing so, but right now I don't see any other language in prevalent usage that is anywhere near as exciting as C#. There are some fringe ones that intrigue me, but they won't pay the bills. :(
Bill Kempf
wek...@outlook.com Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
- Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Bugs are features.
Date: Fri, 30 May 2014 11:50:13 +0100