WPF: Final

So here it comes, Windows 8. This discussion on StackOverflow provides some really good answer about all-new WinRT platform from Microsoft employee. BTW seems like this fellow is definetely monitors and answers most of winrt tagged questions on StackOverflow, this is so nice of Microsoft.

So, what is the answer to question "Is WPF is dead?". The answer is both yes and no. In fact the whole .NET system is left behind. In the UI design aspect we that while you are still can use XAML you, in fact using all new WinRT libraries which are available not only to .NET, but to C++ and JavaScript. You can name WinRT as a "Native .NET". So WPF is dead for WinRT. Yet Microsoft did very good job in saving your XAML experience in WPF, so you can use it in WinRT via "replace namespace" method. Also WPF and .NET is still there, and will be for a very long time, but I don't think this is as good investment as it was three years ago, then Microsoft pushed WPF as their primary API for UI.

Resume. Microsoft made .NET second time, this time in native languages. This results in all Windows 8 cool features we have seen, such as very low memory usage and blazingly fast speed. WPF and .NET just couldn't make it, even using DirectX, so Microsoft falled back to native apps. To me, as developer, this is actually a good thing, since we get a "Win32 Reloaded" platfrom which have all (or most of) RAD stuff which makes .NET so popular.

P.S. Related video.

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WPF "strikes back"

As a funny coincidence next day after my post about death, or more correctly, halt of WPF development, I've received another mail from a Microsoft mailing list. There was an article in Windows development section named Автоматизация стоматологического кресла в WPF (which is something like "Automation dentist chair using WPF" in English). I was thinking "Whoa! That was unexpeted!", but real fun was after clicking a link: a 2 month old article at CodeProject, that a clever move! While maintaning, for show, some articles about WPF, Microsoft isolates itself from it, so they can say afterwards: look, it wasn't even our guy article! Nice move, but one more proof of big instability and uncertainty around WPF.

P.S. check out CodeProject — it's a great place to learn and share code.

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Is WPF is going to it's end?

Most propably it will in a some way. There most probably, I would say is about good 80%, and some way, is "will be left as is, and will not be promoted in any way". The rumors, strong rumors, for this are floating for about a year as of now. And Microsoft is holding a silence for too long on that matter.

Some individual responses by Rob Relyea are trying to deny this, but look at Rob Relyea current position: Program Manager on Kinect for Windows Team. And then Past: * Program Manager/Architect on WPF/XAML (2001-2011). Suddenly after 10 years on WPF/XAML he is in some quite other role.

Look at the official WPF team blog. Silence since November, 2010. That's not how actively developed product blog looks like. The last big boom (and only?) about WPF was about porting Visual Studio 2010 UI to WPF, this was end of year 2009.

Nowadays, Microsoft talks all about HTML5 and JavaSript, much more than about WPF, which is quite suspicious by itself: Microsoft will stand ground puching it's own technology, if possible. One of last WPF PDC videos (7:00 AM, no audience, no questions, and horrible quality of recording) is just "beating about the bush". It's not what you expect from technology vNext presentation. Watching this video, I can just say that next version of WPF is Silverlight. WPF will be left as a host, engine, core, whatever you like, to support existing infrastructure around WPF. Future development will be forced to move to Silverlight, and there is a reason — to push and boost Windows Phone 7 applications.

The most intriguing question about all that, is, why is this happening? I think this sitiation have many aspects, this is that this comes to mind:

• WPF wasn't that successful enough to crown it as main platform for Windows UI. There was a quite of a negative experience with WPF, Evernote 3.5 is popular example. Speed and memory of course is a major factor if you want to put all OS graphics on that, Windows is not that fast by it's own, that to think about WPF?
• Windows Phone  7+ lobby. If you force developers to use Silverlight, then you have all desktop developers that are able to write GUI and apps for Windows Phone.
• Microsoft wants to get it all with all those HTML[5] and JavaScript developers. If you can write windows apps in Ajax, then Microsoft doubles (at least) number of developers for it's main platform.

This note is rather confused, yet I hope it will provide you with some food for thought.

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