CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wpfwinforms
Oleg Vazhnev
Oleg Vazhnev

Reputation: 24067

Are there any reasons to choose to start learning Winforms instead of WPF?

Taking into account that I'm not familar with both of these technologies what should I start to learn? It seems I should use WPF as it allows "much more"?

Should WPF be used instead of Winforms? Is WPF substituting Winforms?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 784

Answers (6)

Chinmoy
Chinmoy

Reputation: 1754

I was not so lucky as you to pick between WinForms and WPF, so I learned WinForms five years back and WPF a year back.

I do not regret it because there are a couple of things that WPF cannot do and we have to fall back to WinForms. Other times, there are WinForms components that you end up using in your WPF application because it is something that is developed by someone else.

At the end of the day, I was really happy how I could appreciate the ease of communication between the view and the view-model because I knew how difficult and mixed up it was in WinForms. So my two cents worth of advice is, do learn WinForms because it helps you appreciate WPF.

WPF is designed to replace WinForms which became obsolete years back. However, as you can see, the older .NET 2.0 stack is still in use because of Windows XP and WPF is present from .NET framework 3.5. So, learn both but your focus should be WPF.

I created this around July this year using WPF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4qfFrZGKlA

Upvotes: 0

EightyOne Unite
EightyOne Unite

Reputation: 11795

Like everything else,..it depends. Are you a professional or hobbyist? If you're a hobbyist then learn both. Winforms first, then WPF/SL because,...well,...why not? It's good to have a solid background understanding.

If you're pro then don't waste your time with WinForms, the time you'll spend learning the intricacies and of everything will not likely translate to any real benefit for your career unless you enjoy working in customer support or on legacy systems. Some do but most probably don't.

The learning curve of WPF and Silverlight is a little steep at first but it's not as bad as some say and if you've done any decent amount HTML in the past and you're used to declarative UI, it's really quite straight forward. Much easier than CSS anyway!

It's also worth considering that given the current direction of MS platforms and WinDev at Redmond, some might argue that you should take a look at WinRT and 'Metro style' apps right now too. Google/Bing the Build 2011 sessions and start there.

Good luck with everything :-)

HTH

Upvotes: 4

woodykiddy
woodykiddy

Reputation: 6455

Take a look at some WPF tutorial websites, for example, like this one: http://www.wpftutorial.net/WPFIntroduction.html, and see if you feel like you are going to go with WPF.

Besides, if you are familiar with mark-up language, XAML shouldn't be too hard for you to learn. And then from there, you can try building some simple WPF applications, and probably you will start to love it once you feel the beauty of WPF.

As for Winform, it's kinda old .NET technology. Not that it's totally not worth using/learning it. There are still large numbers of .NET application out there using Winform as its UI. It's still a good way to get familiar with .NET controls and some basics. But for the long term, you probably should focus more on WPF.

Upvotes: 0

amrfaissal
amrfaissal

Reputation: 1070

WinForms are much older than WPF, they exist since Win95 if i can remember. WPF is released as a module of .NET 3.5, it allows you to do powerful animations, complex graphic effects and a lot of beautiful things and which make life a lot easier :).

In general, WPF is the future. SO it's up to you ;)

Upvotes: 0

Seph
Seph

Reputation: 8703

Depending on your background WinForms could be easier to get a hold of initially, generally WinForms is easier to pickup and learn compared to having to learn WCF. There is a lot of legacy WinForms applications still out there that will be around for a long time.

There's plenty of related questions on the bottom right of the page. Here's one such https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2703681/winforms-vs-wpf.

With all that said, if you're starting fresh it might help to learn WPF straight away so you don't have to re-learn things later on. So it really depends where you want to focus your career for the next little while (you can always learn the other if you need to, many have done that).

Upvotes: 0

Anton
Anton

Reputation: 1419

Winforms are easier to understand, in my opinion. WPF is more designer's stuff than programmers.

Anyway, WPF is more modern technology, more beautiful, and if it's what you're seeking, you may skip the winforms part.

Upvotes: -3

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