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Thread: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL ?

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    Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL ?

    Have been doing most of my work with VB.net and WinForms (Some ASM and C++ at times)

    -I wonder if moving from WinForms to WPF is valuable to learn or it's better off learning Java or C# something like that ?
    -WPF just seems to allow for better visual customizations but is that it ?
    -Should I go for web design since I already "know" software developpement or stick to one area?

    Some of these questions may be a matter of opinion, just looking for insight,

    KBConsole

    PS: This may not be the appropriate section on the forum but I'm not sure where to post this so move if needed (Sorry).

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    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    I personally have moved onto web development because of how much it has advanced in the past couple of years. CSS3 in particular gives users a whole new experience that in the past could only be achieved by JavaScript. Don't get me wrong, XAML in my opinion is one of the greatest inventions in Microsoft's great history. However... considering that there is no replacement for WPF that works on .NET Core, I don't really see a future for WPF.

    Take this with a grain of salt, this is just how I've read the tea leaves and what I've personally done. It has helped me out tremendously in my piggy bank too

    Edit - I did move this to General Development Forum too. It seems more appropriate in this forum.
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    PowerPoster PlausiblyDamp's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    Quote Originally Posted by dday9 View Post
    I personally have moved onto web development because of how much it has advanced in the past couple of years. CSS3 in particular gives users a whole new experience that in the past could only be achieved by JavaScript. Don't get me wrong, XAML in my opinion is one of the greatest inventions in Microsoft's great history. However... considering that there is no replacement for WPF that works on .NET Core, I don't really see a future for WPF.

    Take this with a grain of salt, this is just how I've read the tea leaves and what I've personally done. It has helped me out tremendously in my piggy bank too

    Edit - I did move this to General Development Forum too. It seems more appropriate in this forum.
    https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dot...-applications/ might make your investment in WPF worthwhile, not due till next year and still Windows only but it does bring Windows development back to dot net core.

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    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    Despite that blog I think I agree with DD, moving from WinForms to WPF feels like jumping from one cul-de-sac to another at this stage. MS might decide to support WPF and WinForms in core but I don't see the market being particularly interested. The market wants web, even if the target is sat on a desk. If MS are going to support desktop in core I suspect it's because it's an easy, rather than valuable, win.

    I'd be looking at Web but the trouble there is that there are so many platforms to choose from and they all still feel a little alien if your a desktop developer. It's hard to know where to jump in. Personally, I've found myself herded more and more to back end and middle tier stuff where I can continue to leverage my existing skills. I was supposed to be going to a Blazor conference this week but I'm going on holiday instead... because I'm all about priorities.

    I'd love to see a desktop resurgence but I'm not holding my breath.
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    Interesting. Kinda sad but interesting.

    Many options tho HTML/CSS/Javascript seems like a must even tho it's mostly front end, while PHP and Ruby are for back end right ?

    Should I focus more on Javascript frameworks like Ember/AngularJS/React or is Javascript going to flop soon ... so many questions and choices.

    I guess SQL will be a must as well ?

    KB

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    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    It depends on what you want to do. Do you want to be a front-end developer? A back-end developer? A full-stack developer? A desktop developer? e
    I've done the desktop development for the last 20 some odd years... I'm transitioning (or at least attempting to) into a full-stack, which has me working with React/Redux, postgres, Spring Boot, Java, JSON, docker, and a few other new things... React/Redux basically forms the front end, while Java & Spring Boot form the middle & back end along with the postgres databases.
    Personally I don't see javascript going anywhere anytime soon. It's too widely available, and there are too many libraries built on it with way too much momentum for it to stop.

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    Super Moderator dday9's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    You're correct in that HTML/CSS/JavaScript is the front-end development. I have used PHP for the back-end development, but I'm very excited about NodeJS (especially the NPM packet manager... holy guacamole!).

    I'm with TG, I would not expect JavaScript to go anywhere any time soon. I've personally used JQuery for most of my development, but I started learning vanilla JavaScript and then learning JQuery; keep in mind that while you can do some very advanced stuff in JQuery easily, a lot of times vanilla JavaScript is an optimal use on top of JQuery.

    As far as SQL, it depends. In my line of work, database development is an absolute must. I've been working with MySQL a lot lately, but more recently I've been kind of moving towards document-oriented databases like PostgreSQL because jQuery has native functions that work easily with JSON.
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    Does WinForms make any sense in Core? I thought the entire point was to break away from the Win32 Shell desktop in particular and be more multiplatform in general.
    Last edited by dilettante; Jul 12th, 2018 at 03:05 PM. Reason: typo

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    PowerPoster PlausiblyDamp's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Does WinForms make any sense in Core? I though the entire point was to break away from the Win32 Shell desktop in particular and be more multiplatform in general.
    I suppose it gives a migration path to core for people with a heavy investment in desktop technologies, it could signal a slow down in future development of the 4.7 line. It would also provide a strategy to move more of the non-UI code into core and WPF / Winforms could be one choice of UI technology while alternates could be provided for Linux / Mac, perhaps even a way to get to something like http://avaloniaui.net/ without having to throw all the existing UI code away.

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    Frenzied Member jdc20181's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    Quote Originally Posted by dday9 View Post
    I personally have moved onto web development because of how much it has advanced in the past couple of years. CSS3 in particular gives users a whole new experience that in the past could only be achieved by JavaScript. Don't get me wrong, XAML in my opinion is one of the greatest inventions in Microsoft's great history. However... considering that there is no replacement for WPF that works on .NET Core, I don't really see a future for WPF.

    Take this with a grain of salt, this is just how I've read the tea leaves and what I've personally done. It has helped me out tremendously in my piggy bank too

    Edit - I did move this to General Development Forum too. It seems more appropriate in this forum.
    I actually did the same, well I never really stuck to one language/platform. But Web Development is where everything is, even if it is shipped as a Desktop app, most use universal frameworks, and are Web-based - VB is now more for POS and things that are network related (like you don't want hosted on a web server) - I haven't given up on it just yet ofc. Just eh.
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    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    All my new development is either Web (a combination of ASP.Net MVC (C#) , JavaScript, CSS ) or Mobile (Xamarin - Which is C# and XAML) both using Web API Rest Web services as a back end.

    There are plenty of options for web or mobile development, but that doesn't mean you should be overwhelmed or need to learn them all, just choose the technology stack that suites you (or suites your job) and go with that.

    I work for a large Software house that sells software to a large variety of sectors, and non of them are asking for any type of desktop applications they all want web or mobile or both !
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    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    I guess SQL will be a must as well ?
    Not a must but DEFINITELY worth having in your toolkit. In fact, of all the suggestions here it's the one I would put slap bang at the front of the queue of things to learn. I reckon at least 90% of business applications work against a relational database in some manner. The rise of ORMs has made it less vital but we still frequently find ourselves having to poke under the lid to get them to perform properly.
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    If I were you, I wouldn't put any more time into learning desktop frameworks - look into ASP MVC and .NET core. In technology where I work, there is little demand for desktop applications, except for edge cases.

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    Karen Payne MVP kareninstructor's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    A consideration is, what are your customers asking for? From this your should get a decent path to what technologies to learn. In my last job we moved to SPA (Single Page Applications) five years ago, zero needs for desktop. In my current job (a sister agency of the prior job) 90 percent is web centric with the remainder is WPF. Other sister agencies are all doing 90 to 100 percent for the web.

    Most I talked to or consult with have gone to C#/Entity Framework backend, templating JQuery/CSS frontend in my area. Your area may be very different. No matter in todays world it can hurt to learn C#, JQuery and CSS.

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    Karen Payne MVP kareninstructor's Avatar
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    Re: Is it worth moving from WinForms to WPF ? Or would it be better to learn a new PL

    A consideration is, what are your customers asking for? From this your should get a decent path to what technologies to learn. In my last job we moved to SPA (Single Page Applications) five years ago, zero needs for desktop. In my current job (a sister agency of the prior job) 90 percent is web centric with the remainder is WPF. Other sister agencies are all doing 90 to 100 percent for the web.

    Most I talked to or consult with have gone to C#/Entity Framework backend, templating JQuery/CSS frontend in my area. Your area may be very different. No matter in todays world it can hurt to learn C#, JQuery and CSS.

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