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Recently, I had an interesting discussion with another CPer who took umbrage with my recent article which summarized a shift from WinForms directly to UWA/UWP XAML and ignored WPF XAML.
I mentioned that WPF was indeed ignored by vast numbers of devs and that no shop I've worked in ever paid it more than scant attention. I also mentioned that many devs seemed to (perhaps improperly) connect WPF with Silverlight and MS killed Silverlight in the quiet of the night and many devs never felt much motivation to go to WPF.
Not Reviving A Debate Or Anything Against WPF-minded CPer
Of course, WPF is used all around, I'm sure. This post is not an attempt to revive a debate that ended up being a very good discussion. I think the CPer was definitely correct on many things he said.
My point is the following (and I think it is interesting):
Trying To Find XAML Control Solutions: Difficult
Today, I was looking for a way to make sure my UWA (XAML-based) app's ListView would show the last selected item even when it lost focus -- keep it highlighted.
Could Only Find WinForms Answers
As I searched I could find nothing but WinForms answers about how to do that. Those answers are like 7 years old.
Should Be Very Simple and Is In WinForms
The answer should be very simple.
WinForms Answer : In WinForms the answer is set the HideSelected property to false.
This is something that is an obvious functionality in a ListView. So obvious that WinForms provided a property.
Not so in XAML. Hmmm...
Disclaimer
Yes, I am a newbie to XAML and someone will surely post the answer to how to do this in XAML as soon as I post.
Feels Like Microsoft Never Fully Developed XAML Either
This kind of thing makes me feel like Microsoft never carried out the XAML development all the way either.
Just thought it was very interesting. How about you?
EDIT
I also own this book Universal Windows Apps with XAML and C# Unleashed [^] -- probably the best one available on UWP XAML and it does not have these kinds of details either.
However, this type of thing was always covered quite well on the WinForms side and even if you couldn't find it, you could look through every property.
modified 13-Dec-17 17:12pm.
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I'm curious, with the demise of yet another MS technology, the windows phone, what benefit is there to UWP.
You have to remember winforms is the most mature windows development platform, I'd be astonished if there are things in there that have not made it into WPF yet.
I pray to the great Ghu that those bastards at MS don't deprecate WPF. Yes I'm still bitter about the demise of Silverlight.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: what benefit is there to UWP
There is very little benefit, really.
And I think many people feel this way.
The benefits that do exist are indirect.
They are things like:
1. Only UWP apps will be admitted to the Windows Store.
2. Getting into the Windows Store makes it a bit easier (for indie devs) to deploy their apps to the population of Win10 users.
3. Uh...Microsoft is telling us that Win10 is the future and that UWP is _The Way_ to develop apps for that future (Win10). 
4. I'm now attempting to make up more benefits...think...think...  Oh, yeah, WinForm technology is old and crufty and it is really bad for MVC (the pattern, not the microsoft thing) since so many of the Concerns are tied together in WinForms. So XAML does better binding and UWP is XAML based.
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1 & 2 may be valid but 3 & 4 are not benefits and all are totally irrelevant to a corporate developer who was not even aware of Windows store  .
As for 3 - after Silverlight (and a myriad of other tech) MS has no credibility when giving technology recommendations for "the way to anything".
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Totally agree 100% with everything you said.
And maybe this is really means the end of an era with Microsoft.
Just not sure how they survive all of this because it seems like a lot of devs feel this way.
Or, does it mean they continue to limp along on 20 year old technology and devs are fine with that because that is what they know anyways?
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raddevus wrote: 1. Only UWP apps will be admitted to the Windows Store.
Ultimately, that's not going to be true. MS has been working to bring the ability to run Win32 apps/WPF apps/Win Forms, etc, to run as appx so they can be downloaded from the app store.
This space for rent
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: MS has been working to bring the ability to run Win32 apps/WPF apps/Win Forms, etc, to run as appx so they can be downloaded from the app store.
Now that is an interesting situation.
So they are undercutting their own technology future, because doing that means even fewer (if fewer is possible) will take up UWP.
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There are many reasons for this. Here are a few:
1. It's something that's of interest to enterprises because they can offload many of their apps to use this technology without rewriting; it makes distribution easier for them if they run their own enterprise version of the Microsoft AppStore (this is something I know that businesses are keen on).
2. It opens up the opportunity for Microsoft to vastly increase the amount of applications it can deliver from the app store (as well as increasing the target devices if they ever do manage to get a mobile version out the door).
3. As Microsoft charge a fee for serving apps from the app store, this increase gives them an opportunity to tap into a very lucrative market here.
This space for rent
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All very good explanations for that.
Of course, it is all about the $$$$.
Interesting to think about Corporations pay to deploy apps to their own machines.
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raddevus wrote:
Interesting to think about Corporations pay to deploy apps to their own machines.
No, they won't be - they'll be hosting their own private app store. They'll license that from Microsoft.
This space for rent
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: they'll be hosting their own private app store.
Ahh...interesting.
Own the deployment and you own everything else.
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WPF and UWP are, one way or another, getting closer together with the formulation of XAML Standard.
In a year or so, this will generalize XAML to the point that UWP, WPF, Xamarin.Forms (and Unity3D assets like NoesisGUI) will all work with the same basic XAML.
Add that to the steady evolution of WebAssembly, and you'll end up with local HTML clients running C# and XAML somewhere around Q4/2018-Q1/2019.. if nothing goes horribly wrong.
My money is on UWP and WPF devs eventually migrating to HTML5/electron running C# with some iteration of XAML Standard. At that point, the boundaries between web and desktop apps will be gone, and everything else can be deprecated. 
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That's an interesting view on the situation, but I think it may take longer simply because devs get so tied to technologies. Look at us still using WinForms.
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Working on it? It's been out for I don't know how many months.
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Parts of it yes but there's a lot more surfacing they are working on.
This space for rent
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raddevus wrote: it is really bad for MVC (the pattern, not the microsoft thing)
Really? Simply use the forms or controls as views and write yourself some nice baseclasses for the controllers (or presenters in my case). To completely get rid of the forms concept, you may also need some concept of a workspace. Easy as pie and I have ported code from ASP .Net web forms (a hack, I must admit) to WinForms, from there to WPF and from there to my own UI in XNA (now MonoGame).
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Meanwhile, you'll be keeping the CPU busy and draining power, to render 2D surfaces, while your graphics card keeps idling and your users complain of a slow app, nevermind all the frame-skips. Native development is not like web-development, you don't just throw a few libraries and hack a UI.
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André Pereira wrote: Meanwhile, you'll be keeping the CPU busy and draining power, to render 2D surfaces, while your graphics card keeps idling and your users complain of a slow app,
You don't say! If I only had known that. Fortunately I do use the graphics hardware to render the UI and that multithreded little monster uses a 3D engine to render into the background. The CPU barely breaks some sweat.
I have posted the link before: Take a look here.[^] And if you don't like my models or UI design, then that's ok. It simply means that I'm not much of an artist or designer. 
André Pereira wrote: Native development is not like web-development, you don't just throw a few libraries and hack a UI.
Thank god, otherwise our poor CPU would be tied up running some worthless interpreter (like JavaScript) and there will not be enough left for the 2D surfaces.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Just as long as your users aren't on Windows XP or Window 7 on "classic theme", which disables 2D acceleration :p. Spread the good word. Don't let web-developers take over what used to be the top-tier experience in usability.
[RANT]God, just last week I had to hack some UI stuff on Android with a web-view. Spent 10 minutes developing the required stuff and 3 days debugging web-browser related stuff. And in the end, I still had to mask the page loading in the background, so it doesn't look awful (i.e. like a browser).[/RANT]
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Mycroft Holmes wrote: what benefit is there to UWP
The "U" in UWP to me says it all: Universal. One codebase that runs on desktops, mobile (or at least used to ), tablets, Xbox, SurfaceHub, HoloLens, and IoT devices. That may not be attractive to all developers or for all use cases, but from my admittedly narrow understanding it opens up some pretty slick possibilities without the effort it takes to get other approaches working on multiple platforms.
Full disclosure: I'm not a developer but I am a Microsoft employee. Flame on. 
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My non-canned response would be:
1 - It's the most recent and the most supported target for software development. (HiDPI screens, touch and pen, GPS and sensors with a simple native API).
2 - You don't immediately lock yourself out of target platforms, you get some choice. (Desktop is good enough, throw in tablet support for free and everything else is a nice extra.)
3 - Integrated store deployment and store updates (I still remember maintaining the self-updater on a legacy software, something that's obsolete now.).
99 - C# + .net + Xaml + MVVM = development bliss.
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Just compare Spider Solitaire Win10 (UWP) and Win7.
Specifically, try re-sizing the windows both up and down.
Then ask yourself what is UWP good for.
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WinForms, or better, the Common Controls, are very underappreciated; it is a mature product. A standard that is not just available on Windows anymore, as WinForms work just as happily under Linux.
I'm sure that WPF is better for graphics, as advertised.
I build tools for people that work. They don't care about flashy, they care about reliability and predictability. I'm not paid for animated borders, but functionality - and will probably still be maintaining WinForms code by the time that our great overloads predicted that AI will write code.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Interesting points and very interesting in light of the original conversation I had with the WPF-centric dev.
It has been my experience that winforms are good enough for corporate devs to get the job done and like you said they have a long history and been "production-tested" and just seem to work.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: I build tools for people that work. They don't care about flashy, they care about reliability and predictability. I'm not paid for animated borders, but functionality - and will probably still be maintaining WinForms code by the time that our great overloads predicted that AI will write code.
Absolutely agree. I’ve played with some of the newer GUI technologies myself and keep finding that the mature WinForms technology is the way to go. It might not be considered “flashy” but sure is reliable and gets the job DONE.
If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur! - Red Adair
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