It has been 8 years since WPF was introduced as a part of .NET 3.0 in 2006. WPF has changed the way we build Windows client applications. I was a VB, VC++, MFC, ATL and COM developer before I jumped to Windows Forms in .NET days. And then WPF came and drastically changed (in a good way) the way we write Windows client applications. Since then, I've built hundreds of small and large applications using WPF and still continue to do so.
But once in a while, I get the question:
What is the future of WPF?
I remember about 2 years ago, I wrote the article What is the future of WPF and here we are again with the same question.
But today, I don't blame you. Today, this question is very obvious. In recent days, Microsoft's focus has shifted its focus to the mobile and cloud applications and out of curiously (or fear) we wonder what will happen to WPF.
On Nov 12, at the Visual Studio Connect() event in New York, Microsoft announced open sourcing the .NET Framework including the core, BCL, CLR and other components. Microsoft also announced Visual Studio 2015 Preview and .NET Framework 4.6. Check out What is new in Visual Studio 2015 and Features of .NET 4.6. Most of the talks and focus was on open sourcing .NET, Azure, Cloud and Visual. That shows where the technologies are going at Microsoft. As always, Microsoft will never admit that WPF is slowly going away as the demand is diminishing. At least, this is what I see from my personal experience.
Earlier this year, the WPF Team published a blog on the WPF Roadmap that talks about the current work and future of WPF and clearly from this blog, you can tell the WPF team is focusing in improvements and adding some productivity tools to WPF.
So, now let's get back to our original question, the future of WPF.
As I wrote in my previous blog, the future of WPF is not bad. However, as the need of the mobile and web applications grows, the need for WPF is shrinking.
Here is the formula that calculates the future of anything (x):
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Future of (x) is directly proportional to the need of (x).
Based on my personal experience and clients' needs, most of the Windows client applications are being built using WPF. However, the need for mobile and web applications is growing faster than anything else.
If you're still not sure about the future of WPF, watch this the following video in which two Visual Studio program managers at Microsoft, Unni and Hari, talk about the future of WPF, XAML, Blend and much more.
Want more?
While this article is based on my personal experience and some feedback from Microsoft team, here is a detailed analytics and very good and solid points on the future of WPF.