Future of Winforms?

Question

Lots of questions asked about the future of Winforms on msdn forums. Most of the posts saying Winforms will be dead in future and WPF will be the replacement.Anyone have any idea about this..

Mahesh Chand · Answer

WPF is the future. The matter of fact is, WPF provides better model with much better rendering and new features that are just impossible with Windows Forms. Windows Forms may be around for several years and may never die, but the future is WPF. All new Windows client applications I see are being developed in WPF. In last few years, I have seen no new application is being written in Windows Forms. So I say, it will be WPF that will rule the Windows client applications.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

You can make your decisions based on the speculation that Windows Forms will soon be dead. I will make my decisions based on the speculation that Windows Forms will not soon die.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

People often ask questions such as this. Years ago they asked if MFC is going away. It depends on what you mean by go away. Are you asking if Microsoft will stop improving it? Or are you asking if it will ever be dropped from Visual Studio? Or are you asking if Microsoft will stop supporting it and won't fix any additional bugs if they are found in it? Years ago questions such as these were asked about MFC, which is something for C++ that is similar to Windows Forms. The same issues of clarification was asked then too; developers were concerned that the programs they write today won't work in a couple of years, or something such as that. Even one of the designers of MFC said that MFC won't be improved. Then Microsoftr made substantial improvemetns to MFC. My guess is that you should ignore anyone saying that Windows Forms will be dead in the future; it is likely that they don't have accurate information and their speculation is likely useless. So who is it that is saying that Windows Forms will be dead in the future? You should tell them that Windows Forms will not die before MFC and MFC is still active (it was the last time I checked).

Ricardo Araoz · Answer

Hello Suthish, my name is Rick. Regarding the question as to whether Windows Forms is going to die or not, I would say not. If you take a look at what the main control tool set developers are doing, you get an idea. The main control developers are DevExpress, ComponentOne, Infragistics and Telerik. All of these companies work closely with Microsoft. It is important to them to know what products to continue developing and what product lines to drop. In the case of WinForms, all of these companies are developing controls and improving the way we develop apps with Winforms. My opinion is that these guys would not be wasting their time developing toolkits for technologies that have no future. Take a look at DevExpress and the gorgeous UI controls they have available for Winforms. Also, they have developed their own flavor of MVVM for Winforms, you can now use MVVM modeling with Winforms. In addition, they have introduced Touch with all of their Winforms controls, meaning that if you write an app for the desktop, it will work with a touch screen and also on Windows tablets. So the bottom line is, look at what the leaders in the market are doing and that ought to give you an idea.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

So my background was Windows Forms. I started my development with C/C++ and then jumped into MFC and Windows API. I remember the pain of creating Windows and capturing events. Then I moved to ATL and COM. And then it came Windows Forms. I loved Windows Forms. So I built so many applications in Windows Forms .. let's call them a Lot. Then WPF came and after that I never touched Windows Forms.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

WPF is fantastic; I have never said otherwise. I just think it is misleading to be as critical of Windows Forms as many are. People around here could easily get the impression that I think Windows Forms is fantastic, but the truth is that most of what I say about it is in response to their criticism of Windows Forms. Speaking of COBOL and resisting new technologies, in 1990 Lockheed was very reluctant to use the new COBOL compiler that implemented the 1985 COBOL standard just because it required an investment in time to support the two compilers simultaneously. There definitely were many companies that did embrace the improvements of the new COBOL standard and were eager to benefit from them, but there are also many companies that were not. I assume companies are still like that in terms of a mix of eagerness and resistance. The acid test is this; what percentage of existing software (currently in use) uses WPF compared to use of Windows Forms?

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Good discussions guys! So, I am building a lot more Windows client applications and all of them (100%) new applications are being built in WPF. I am sure companies who are using Windows Forms applications are not going to move to WPF unless there are major changes. WPF provides much more flexibility than Windows Forms. Let's see what Metro UI brings to the future!

Mike Hillman · Answer

Companies try to steer the market but the users control it by what technologies they adopt. No company in their right mind would abandon a a huge installed base of applications such as WinForm apllications, because the alternative for those user might be someone elses product, like Linux and Java. The fact that Microsoft releases a new technology every year causes users to cling to what they have in fear that embracing the new technology may be a mistake when the company replaces it with the next "flavor of the month". Already WPF adopters fear HTML5 and all the world waits for a standard to emerge (and waits and waits and ).

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Would you say that all retired people are already in coffins? Unless you do, there is no coffin for the Windows API or Windows Forms. There was a time when people such as Paul DiLascia (author of Windows++ and a MFC expert) truly believed that MFC would not be modified after .Net was introduced, but it has been. Microsoft wanted to retire much of the database software. That is why 64-bit versions of Windows do not have all of the database software installed that 32-bit Windows does. Microsoft was forced to revert that descision, correct? The Windows API is close to retirement, but it might be recalled. If I had a choice, I would choose retirement for the Windows API. To the extent that Windows 8 has a totally new UI, there will be more opportunity for other UIs not from Microsoft.

Vulpes · Answer

Although I agree with Mike that Windows Forms will be around for some time yet, another nail has certainly been driven into its coffin by Windows 8. For the time being, you'll still be able to run existing WF applications and build new ones but only as 'legacy' applications. The same fate has even befallen WPF but, as the new Metro UI is also XAML based, it'll be a relatively easy transition for WPF developers.

Mike Hillman · Answer

For 20 years I have been hearing that COBOL is dead and yet there is still a demand for COBOL programmers. As long as there is a large installed base of applications the product will not die. WinForm will be around for quite some time and WPF is just the flavor of the month.

Suthish Nair · Answer

VS2010 was built with WPF http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Forums/Thread/108425/vs2010-was-built-with-wpf.aspx

Sam Hobbs · Answer

I need to learn WPF and Silverlight and I will but I am not impressed by the designer. The requirement to edit the XAML is a step backward. Even back in 16-bit Windows the IDE did not show the resource language code for dialogs. It was sometimes necessary to edit the resource language code but not so much that the code was shown as part of the designer.

Ibrahim Ersoy · Answer

I agree with Sam. Microsoft doesnt support J# anymore,but i can use it with Visual Studio 2005.Besides you can still download it from MSDN :) Same option also works with Windows Forms. But i also agree Suthish,there is a possibility Microsoft might guide developers to migrate from Windows Forms to WPF applications.

Suthish Nair · Answer

just for a discussion only. :)

Suthish Nair · Answer

Yes Sam, because WPF is around now. Vast major improvements happening with WPF. Thats why i asked the question.

Amit Choudhary · Answer

Well suthish, legacy support of Windows forms will always exist .. but ya it won't be opted for future applications as we have rich UI provided in WPF.

Frogleg · Answer

Yes, I've read same thing. Ah well gotta move with the times

Future of Winforms?

Answers (18)