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Personally, I love WinForms!
No HTML/CSS or XAML mess! Just grab a control, drop it on the screen and IT JUST WORKS!
You may want to add a third party control library such as DevExpress or Telerik to make it better looking, get more features and make it even easier to develop.
Sure, it doesn't scale as well and it's not really multi-platform, but if your customers use Windows desktops that isn't really an issue.
I'm not really sure about Microsoft alternatives, but I know they used Electron[^] for Visual Studio Code.
Yeah, it features all of that awful HTML and CSS and it even adds JavaScript to make it worse, but at least it's "modern" multi-platform desktop development.
It's what all the cool desktop developers use 
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Sander Rossel wrote: No HTML/CSS or XAML mess! Just grab a control, drop it on the screen and IT JUST WORKS!
Aw come one man, you don't like having to install 500 npm packages for hello world? 
Sander Rossel wrote: I'm not really sure about Microsoft alternatives, but I know they used Electron[^] for Visual Studio Code.
That's cool. Didn't know this. At first glance it reminds me of Adobe Flex rehashed. I reckon if Slack and MS and Atom all use it though, it'll be around for a while. Thanks for the tip.
Jeremy Falcon
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I got started in my programming career on the old VC++ and then migrated to WinForms C#. I heartily agree with this post. Back then, the UI was not complicated, and all the stuff that is a PITA to do in JavaScript seemed to be so easily abstracted out. GUI Programming then was fun; now it's like getting a tooth removed. 
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I like Winforms. It seems a good match with the Windows UI. It seems odd that MS have left it fallow - what else would they like us to use? We could use WPF but that isn't updated before. Given that Windows' success is on the top of desktop apps - why wouldn't Microsoft want to give us a first class, up-to-date framework for it? What would be the downside?
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they don't have people to working on it...especially since google,amazon,oracle,saleforce are stealing the thunder and sales with cloud
and with microsoft strategy for the cloud and since all development is moving towards web or cloud or whacma call
it
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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I can see they might not put 100% at the top. If everything goes to the cloud Windows becomes irrelevant... so why not keep people interested in developing for it.
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If I'm not mistaken WinForms makes use of GDI which is an older Windows specific method for drawing stuff on screen.
That makes it hard to scale, which is very important with all these different devices nowadays.
It also just doesn't work on anything that isn't a Windows computer.
As such, making "modern" applications that speak to a majority of the public is difficult, if not impossible, using WinForms.
It's great for a lot of businesses, but they're moving to the cloud and the web.
So all in all I think WinForms had its best days 
That's not to say it isn't or can't be used anymore, COBOL is still around too 
Try to see WinForms as a finished product, it's just great the way it is and doesn't need any more updates 
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Sander Rossel wrote: Personally, I love WinForms!
No HTML/CSS or XAML mess! Just grab a control, drop it on the screen and IT JUST WORKS!
You may want to add a third party control library such as DevExpress or Telerik to make it better looking, get more features and make it even easier to develop.
Sure, it doesn't scale as well and it's not really multi-platform, but if your customers use Windows desktops that isn't really an issue.
Agreed.
Tell you what? Let all the young kids go drive themselves to distraction chasing whatever technology is the fad of the day and let us old guys cry all the way to the bank as we continue to write professional applications that get the job done, even if "behind-the-scenes", eh?
-CM
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
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ClockMeister wrote: Let all the young kids...
I'm only 29 myself (almost 30)
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Wow ... a smart young developer!
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
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Write your own UI. It's not very hard.
I am endeavoring, ma'am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.
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I think the keys to what Microsoft is thinking are:
1. announcing that they won't be creating HW devices (pads and phones) -- plus Surface may go away by 2020 or something
2. They are going to support Edge on iOS and Android
I think that is a move toward Progressive Web Apps -- this is _not_ Progressive Enhancement - that's a different concept. When I heard PWA I initially thought progressive enhancement.
This is a web technology that allows you to install a web app on a device as if it is an app but it uses HTML, JavaScript, CSS and ServiceWorkers.
Check out this book I am reading right now O'Reilly press, amazon link:
Building Progressive Web Apps[^]
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raddevus wrote: HTML, JavaScript, CSS
In that case, Regressive Web Apps would be better suited name 
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Oh, I totally agree with that being the future. MS and hell even the industry has been trying to push and minimize the difference between web and desktop apps for decades now. Although, I suspect our current technology set for the web will be totally shaken up by WASM, which is key to bringing the future of PWAs into mainstream in the future. There's a lot of things that old skool languages offer that the web needs to embrace and vice versa. So, this is the next evolutionary step that's required.
Looks like an interesting book man. I'll perhaps add it to my queue. Thanks for the link.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: I assume there is no real future in WinForms.
If you're referring to WinForms vs WPF, then yes, I agree.
if you're referring to Windows Development as a practice, then I disagree. There are and always will be many different types of enterprise level apps that are and always will be Windows based.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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Kevin Marois wrote: If you're referring to WinForms vs WPF, then yes, I agree.
Yup. I don't think Windows development in general is going anywhere any time soon.
Jeremy Falcon
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OK then - we can be friends 
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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LMAO... yay!
Jeremy Falcon
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Kevin Marois wrote: If you're referring to WinForms vs WPF, then yes, I agree.
if you're referring to Windows Development as a practice, then I disagree. There are and always will be many different types of enterprise level apps that are and always will be Windows based.
[Soapbox Mode]
Even though it might be "fashionable" to move from WinForms technology to WPF (or whatever), I don't think that either of them are going to disappear; they both have their place. As "old" as one might consider WinForms to be, it is a time-tested and true technology for developing the front-end of a Windows application. I tried application development with the XAML style UI in WPF for awhile. I found that, while there are some things you can pull off with it that can't be done with WinForms that few if any of said features mattered to me. If your front-end isn't trying to be "pretty" in some way with odd-shaped forms and special graphical presentations, why bother with it? I haven't yet (myself) run into a situation where doing a web-style (XAML) type user-interface would have added any value to the application I was working on. If I were developing a program that presented the front-end to look exactly like a DVD player or something, then I would probably need to use WPF.
Naturally, Microsoft, and the market-at-large are going to "push" the newer technologies so that they can sell solutions that, to many, solve problems that don't exist for them. It isn't, by and large, "fashionable" to stick with a technology that "just works" ... you've got to constantly change your tool set so that someone can sell you said tools.
As you stated, Windows desktop development ain't going anywhere for a very, very long time. WinForms is still an extremely powerful tool with which to develop presentation-layer to an application. Developers who have only been around for the last dozen or so years or less have no appreciation for how much work it used to take to make an intelligent presentation of data on a screen or a printer.
There's room for all of these technologies, however there are some (like WinForms) that are just so well defined and stable that they'll probably never stop being the mainstay of really excellent front-end presentations that don't require constant tweaking just to make them work. With a mature technology like WinForms I find that I spend a higher percentage of time solving the problem-at-hand rather than spending my time trying to tweak (or make work in the first place) the front-end user experience. Again, if the user experience is the point (DVD Player for example) then, yeah, use WPF (or whatever UI technology is best for that).
It's just the assertion that developers like to make that such-and-such technology is "dead" because they don't consider it fashionable anymore that's silly. COBOL development is not considered fashionable either, but I read recently that 70% of business-oriented code (banks, etc.) is still COBOL, and the guys that know that technology cry all the way to the bank!
[/Soapbox mode]
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: I know WinForms isn't going anywhere.
Like SQL92, present, reliable and widely unknown.
I'm using WinForms on Ubuntu and OpenSUSE; regardless of what Microsoft does or doesn't, the library will be there. Support for it is something I do not need, it just needs to be there; a proven UI, a wrapper around the legendary common controls. Stuff that people recognize and know how to interact with, without having to follow a "proper" course to interact with your application or reading a book!
So, I'd say you're right. Unlike hypes like WPF, we know for sure that WinForms isn't going anywhere; it is a standard UI recognized regardless of the platform, available for free, with a mountain of documentation, examples and tutorials. A rich-UI, free, documented, and the defacto-standard since the Amiga left the market that's not going anywhere.
Much like SQL92 and me - always present, always boring. With the promise not to go anywhere
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: I'm using WinForms on Ubuntu and OpenSUSE;
Is this over Mono or something like Wine?
Eddy Vluggen wrote: Much like SQL92 and me - always present, always boring. With the promise not to go anywhere
Sometimes boring is a good thing. It's another way of saying stable. Just wanna make sure I have as much info as possible.
That's cool about the Linux side of things. With the MS adoption of Linux now, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: Is this over Mono or something like Wine?
In my case Mono, though Wine should work (with limits).
Jeremy Falcon wrote: Sometimes boring is a good thing. It's another way of saying stable. Just wanna make sure I have as much info as possible.
Some managers like sexy, others like predictable
Jeremy Falcon wrote: That's cool about the Linux side of things. With the MS adoption of Linux now, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
It is cool to present a recognizable UI on a "foreign" platform, and it is doubly cool to cut dependencies.
It is triple cool to see it run on a 40$ raspberry pi - it gives some competitive advantages for replacing those thin-clients
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: a wrapper around the legendary common controls.
Hi Eddy, please correct me if I am mistaken, but I think WinForms on any platform but Windows do not have these standard WinForm Win Controls (how could they ? ... they're wrappers around old COM fossils), and what Controls they might offer will certainly not offer identical api's and behavior.
That's a problem, I think, for WinForm devs who have a hard-won skill-set of techniques and work-arounds using these Win specific Controls.
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it. A few hundred years later another traveler despairing as myself, may mourn the disappearance of what I may have seen, but failed to see.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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BillWoodruff wrote: Hi Eddy, please correct me if I am mistaken, but I think WinForms on any platform but Windows do not have these standard WinForm Win Controls (how could they ? ... they're wrappers around old COM fossils), and what Controls they might offer will certainly not offer identical api's and behavior.
You'd be right! I actually once wrote an article explaining the makings of a button, and how the Delphi-VCL is but a wrapper over the common controls.
Still I only need to add "System.Windows.Forms" in Mono; and while WinForms is available, WPF isn't.
BillWoodruff wrote: That's a problem, I think, for WinForm devs who have a hard-won skill-set of techniques and work-arounds using these Win specific Controls.
Nah, same UI-rules apply for WPF, Gtk and the Web; yes, different events and properties, but that's what documentation is for
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Not to beat a dead horse, but ...
So, I use VS and create a X/Mono Forms app targeting IOS/Linux ... what do I do for a TreeView, a SplitContainer, etc, ?
«While I complain of being able to see only a shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is now, since I'm not at a stage of development where I'm capable of seeing it. A few hundred years later another traveler despairing as myself, may mourn the disappearance of what I may have seen, but failed to see.» Claude Levi-Strauss (Tristes Tropiques, 1955)
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