Just because the group has been quiet so long.

[Peter O'Hanlon]

I've just learned about an OS attempt to reimplement WPF (just to see how hard it is):

https://github.com/grokys/Avalonia

Comments anyone?

--
Peter O'Hanlon

[Michael Sync]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the link! Yes. This group has been quiet so long. Maybe because some superstar moved to iOS, some move to F# or Javascript.. I wonder if large numbers of people or companies are going to use WPF in any future project. 

Thanks and Best Regards,
Michael Sync

Don't go the way life takes you.
Take life the way you go

http://michaelsync.net

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[Sacha Barber]

Speaking for the f# guy, yes we continue to use wpf for very big projects, and any web work.is angular and Mac mix

[Sacha Barber]

I saw some official msft link a while back saying they were going to redo it and they were hiring for team members to make that happen, can't find link now, and just about to catch plane to go on holiday so sod it for now

--

[jeremiah...@gmail.com]

IMO, “redo it” may be an overstatement…

If the public WPF survey is to be taken as hint in direction, it seems they may be exploring long standing bugs, make DX11 integration more straight forward (meh) and add some Win8 functionality (presumably scenarios that DComp enables).

I don't think we'll see any substantial 'core’ changes to WPF, but I suppose anything is something.

-Jer

Sent from Surface Pro

[Colin E.]

Comments? - nuts!

I am not entirely sure what this means. An attempt to re-implement WPF
in what? What will the rendering layer be written in? Looks like a fun
project for noodling about with, but I doubt it would be of serious
use.

Sacha, I recall seeing MSFT job adverts for WPF developers a while
back, but as Jeremiah mentioned, this is most likely maintenance work.

Michael, I work in the financial sector (trading apps, research tools,
front office), and we do still see WPF being used for internal tools.
It is still a great technology for desktop applications.

For external client apps, Flash, Flex and Silverlight are dead and
buried. It is all HTML5 these days.

Interestingly I actually had my first experience of seeing JavaFX 'in
the wild' a little while back.

Colin E.

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Regards,
Colin E.

[Michael Brown]

I’m still doing WPF down in Houston working in the Energy Sector. They love them some WPF down here!

[Peter O'Hanlon]

We still do a lot of WPF, and while we've started off with some WinRT development, we are hoping for some convergence in the future so that we can share a lot more code - the recent Universal apps is a good start, but we want more (we're greedy like that).

Peter O'Hanlon

[Michael Brown]

Still waiting for the death of Win32. MSFT needs to do like Apple did. Make Win32 a “compatibility layer” and deprecate it. So much energy wasted in Backwards Compatibility.

[Michael Sync]

Hi Colin,

Yes. I understand that all existing projects will still be in WPF (unless the company has a budget to change. ) 

I was talking about the future projects. As I am a early adapter of Silverlight/WPF, I used to have a lot of connections with companies that are using Silverlight/WPF in SEA. (Thanks to Microsoft SG for this.)  But today, I don't see any company that I know is planning to use WPF in future even though they used to be a big fans of Silverlight/WPF. (The funny thing: some of them even hate me because I suggested them to use a dead technology. )

Thanks and Best Regards,
Michael Sync

Don't go the way life takes you.
Take life the way you go

http://michaelsync.net

[Laurent Bugnion]

Anyone who thinks WPF is dead has not been following Microsoft actuality much. WPF was shown on stage during the Build keynote and mentioned as the best technology to build desktop apps, and the WPF team hired new people and had a panel at Build.

In the US and Europe, WPF projects are growing in numbers.

Laurent

---

From: Michael Sync
Sent: ‎30.‎05.‎2014 09:40
To: WPF Disciples
Subject: Re: [WPF Disciples] Just because the group has been quiet so long.

[Michael Sync]

Wow! that's a great news! It is good for those who are still in US. I am currently staying in SEA and my parent companies has a few branches in Europe. I don't hear much about using WPF in new project. And probably, I need to update my feed as well.. As shown in screenshot below, I don't see any update for WPF from any of those blogs (including mine.) :) 

Anyways, I am glad that the companies in US are choosing WPF for their future projects.. that's really awesome! 

Thanks and Best Regards,
Michael Sync

Don't go the way life takes you.
Take life the way you go

http://michaelsync.net

[Laurent Bugnion]

Blogs talk about new things. WPF is mature enough that they moved on to new stuff. Our constant feedback to msft has been that they need to talk more about wpf and the Build keynote demo (built with MVVM light ;) was a first step.

There is a lot of love for .net at msft at the moment, and for WPF. He who cannot be named (his name starts with S and ends with -inofsky) did a LOT of damage but that is finally changing.

I would be curious to know, though, if a firm develops a desktop app, what other tech than wpf they would choose.

Laurent

---

From: Michael Sync
Sent: ‎30.‎05.‎2014 09:56

[Peter O'Hanlon]

WPF has seen a big uptake of courses on Pluralsight. I wanted to write one there, but all the good ones were already taken :D I have to admit that I would feel more love for WinRT if it had used WPF as the starting point instead of Silverlight - but I still live in hope that WinRT apps will bring in features like Markup Extensions (Pete, if you're reading this thread, please use your Pick Of Destiny to get this in).

Peter O'Hanlon

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Also, we have to accept some responsibility for the perception that WPF is dying out. We were such a visible front for WPF comments and discussions; I have heard comments from people that they thought WPF was dead because we didn't talk about it anymore, or were actively encouraging people to move to other platforms.

Once I have finished the course I'm writing, I shall endeavour to rectify this perception by upping my blogging about WPF. 

--
Peter O'Hanlon

[Michael Sync]

>>WPF is mature enough that they moved on to new stuff.

Laurent, mature doesn't mean there is no new things. Look at Javascript, ASP.NET and etc. There are always a lot of new things or new way of doing things... :) 

Yes. Peter! I am looking forward to read your WPF posts again. :) 

I would prefer if Microsoft calls W8 WPF instead of Xaml + C# project. 

Thanks and Best Regards,
Michael Sync

Don't go the way life takes you.
Take life the way you go

http://michaelsync.net

[Laurent Bugnion]

Hey Michael

Do you see a lot of blogs about ASP.net web forms?

Laurent

---

From: Michael Sync
Sent: ‎30.‎05.‎2014 11:33

[Michael Sync]

Hi Laurent, 

What I noticed is that I saw news for asp.net vnext....and also about how MS open-sourced the stuffs..  a lot of exciting stuffs.. I don't have the dedicated feed list for ASP.NET (Sorry, I was a Silverlight/WPF guys).. I will look at them and will let you know, man.. 

Thanks and Best Regards,
Michael Sync

Don't go the way life takes you.
Take life the way you go

http://michaelsync.net

[Laurent Bugnion]

Hey Michael,

There is no doubt that the future of xaml/c# is on the WinRT side. This is where you will find most new blog content. But that is not an indication of what MSFT is doing with the existing technologies. When I speak about mature, I mean it is less exciting than new shiny stuff but it does the work and they are maintaining and extending it (which they now again start talking about). Even in this group many have moved to blog about other exciting stuff even though we continue to do wpf work. It's human nature I guess.

Anyway, keep your eyes and ears open and check past Client Dev MVP meetings (you have access to the recordings, right?). It's all good

Cheers
Laurent 

---

From: Michael Sync
Sent: ‎30.‎05.‎2014 11:41

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Are these MVP recordings in the public domain? If not, I'm screwed.

Peter O'Hanlon

[Michael Sync]

Hi Laurent,

Yes. I have the access. Yah. I just want to see more interesting things in WPF area. Thanks man! :) 

Thanks and Best Regards,
Michael Sync

Don't go the way life takes you.
Take life the way you go

http://michaelsync.net

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Well, for a while I have wondered about blogging about the things that people don't tend to use, such as ComponentResourceKeys.

Peter O'Hanlon

[Laurent Bugnion]

No they are not, sorry.

---

From: Peter O'Hanlon
Sent: ‎30.‎05.‎2014 11:48

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Ah well, that's the price I pay then. I'll just have to be awesome all on my own :D

[Peter O'Hanlon]

So, if you were wanting to read about lesser used features of WPF, what would you want to read about?

--
Peter O'Hanlon

[William Kempf]

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

Subject: Re: [WPF Disciples] Just because the group has been quiet so long.

From: pete.o...@gmail.com
To: wpf-di...@googlegroups.com

[Colin E.]

Hi Michael,

We are basically seeing a continued trend towards moving applications
to the web, where HTML5 is the only viable option. It's not that WPF
isn't sexy, it is a highly mature technology and I don't hesitate to
recommend it. But for client-facing apps, HTML5 is the preferred
option.

... or iOS ;-)

Colin E.

[Peter O'Hanlon]

And if you're going the HTML 5 route, then I'd recommend Node, AngularJS and Socket.IO.

Peter O'Hanlon

[Colin E.]

> And if you're going the HTML 5 route, then I'd recommend Node, AngularJS and Socket.IO.

Node, AngularJS and socket.io, all good recommendations - but it
depends what you are building.

For financial systems, we tend to use more scalable streaming
solutions such as Kaazing, Lightstreamer or Caplin Liberator. Node is
cool, but I wouldn't want to place lots of business logic into Node
apps. I still like writing my business logic in strongly typed
languages ;-)

AngularJS is OK, but can feel heavyweight. I quite like the elegance
of Knockout (I guess I can't let go of the WPF / Silverlight binding
model). Angular feels very much like a framework written by Java devs,
too many factories, services, providers and locators for my liking!
(brings back memories of enterprise Java).

And then there's the rest ... Grunt, Less, Mocha, and a whole shedload
of micro-frameworks, polyfills and shims.

HTML5 is a complex beast, but that is what makes it fun.

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Pah, lightweight Colin :D Writing the logic in Node is perfectly straightforward, in fact, it's an absolute pleasure to use. I love writing complex RESTful services in it - it's no problem whatsoever. Angular is amazingly simple to use - it does take a bit of getting your head around but, let's face it, so did WPF when we first started using it, and I find that Angular fits closer to the feel of DataTemplates than Knockout does.

[Sacha Barber]

We use a hybrid model of angular for spa and routing but the templates are actually served up (only served up angular does all routing) by asp mvc controller, this allows us to use things like

Web API

Signalr

Azure

With angular with ease

I'm about to write article on this

Warm wishes

Sarah Barber DipNT mBANT

Nutritional Therapist & Biofeedback Practitioner

Allergy Testing * Vitamin & Mineral Tests * Hormone & Digestion Screens * Diet & Lifestyle Prescriptions * Weight Loss * Raw Food & Chocolate Classes

www.pure-people.co.uk

Tel:  07976 936363

@purepeoplenutri

www.facebook.com/purepeoplenutri

Sent from my iPhone

[Peter O'Hanlon]

Wow Sarah, you do a lot of development. 

[Sacha Barber]

She's the brains in this outfit for sure, I'm a sham

Warm wishes

Sarah Barber DipNT mBANT

Nutritional Therapist & Biofeedback Practitioner

Allergy Testing * Vitamin & Mineral Tests * Hormone & Digestion Screens * Diet & Lifestyle Prescriptions * Weight Loss * Raw Food & Chocolate Classes

www.pure-people.co.uk

Tel:  07976 936363

@purepeoplenutri

www.facebook.com/purepeoplenutri

Sent from my iPhone