wpf
WPF - Thoughts on first week of use
I've been doing development on our prototype
application since the beginning of this week and
thought I would give my thoughts I what I think of
WPF.
Pros:
It's pretty easy to do things using WPF compared to doing the similar thing in traditional .NET WinForms development. Now, I don't know if this is a case of WPF being a great framework, or WinForms being a bad one; but I'll still consider this a Pro.
Cons:
The tools. Even though WPF has been out a while, the tools used for development still aren't up to snuff. I perform a majority of my XAML development using Expression Blend March 2008 CTP, and all of the C# coding using Visual Studio .NET 2008. In a way this sucks, because, even though Expression Blend is made for doing WPF development, there's no intellisense to be found. Also, it doesn't integrate with a source control system, like Team System, which we use. So I will modify a XAML file and go to save it, then find it's read-only and needs to be checked out. VSTS doesn't have a stand-alone client, I have to fire up Visual Studio to check out the file.
The prototype we are developing is modeled on Infragistics Tangerine example application. This sucks because we're shoe-horning our code into all this existing code. I actually scrapped all the code on the window I am modifying, and also scrapped using their overly complicated XamDataGrid for the built in and easily customizable WPF ListView. Hopefully once we get through with this prototype next week and they show it to the steering committee, and the buy off on it, we can scrap the whole Tangerine application and begin fresh. It's hard to learn a new technology when all you're doing is adding code to an existing application.
Overall I like WPF. I'm not exactly enjoying doing the current development we're doing with it, but it is a nice change of pace.
Pros:
It's pretty easy to do things using WPF compared to doing the similar thing in traditional .NET WinForms development. Now, I don't know if this is a case of WPF being a great framework, or WinForms being a bad one; but I'll still consider this a Pro.
Cons:
The tools. Even though WPF has been out a while, the tools used for development still aren't up to snuff. I perform a majority of my XAML development using Expression Blend March 2008 CTP, and all of the C# coding using Visual Studio .NET 2008. In a way this sucks, because, even though Expression Blend is made for doing WPF development, there's no intellisense to be found. Also, it doesn't integrate with a source control system, like Team System, which we use. So I will modify a XAML file and go to save it, then find it's read-only and needs to be checked out. VSTS doesn't have a stand-alone client, I have to fire up Visual Studio to check out the file.
The prototype we are developing is modeled on Infragistics Tangerine example application. This sucks because we're shoe-horning our code into all this existing code. I actually scrapped all the code on the window I am modifying, and also scrapped using their overly complicated XamDataGrid for the built in and easily customizable WPF ListView. Hopefully once we get through with this prototype next week and they show it to the steering committee, and the buy off on it, we can scrap the whole Tangerine application and begin fresh. It's hard to learn a new technology when all you're doing is adding code to an existing application.
Overall I like WPF. I'm not exactly enjoying doing the current development we're doing with it, but it is a nice change of pace.
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WPF
One of the upcoming features of the application we
are working on is called the online experience. We
want to provide the higher ups, the directors and
managers, with an easy, intuitive look into what's
going on at the moment and in the future, in our
company. One thing my managers are fans of, which I'm
happy about, is eye candy. I don't mean having lots
of bling for no reason. But, from working on a Mac,
you come to like the eye candy that makes the
operating system and it's applications a pleasure to
use. I suggested we look into using WPF (Windows
Presentation Foundation). I've been pretty impressed
with some of the demo applications I've seen, and
hopefully we have waited long enough since it's
introduction that a lot of the bugs have been ironed
out. One thing I really like is this gives us a
chance to have a business application that doesn't
necessarily have to follow the usual boring business
application look-and-feel. It does get boring
sometimes working on an application that's just
filled with grids displaying information, will be a
welcome change to introduce something new.