[C#] WPF vs Windows Form

[samuelbetrisey]

Hi everyone,

At school we are learning C# WPF but Windows Form seams more popular.

Is WPF really better? What are the benefits and disadvantages?

Thank you

[Tycho]

 

These two are totally different technologies. They do offer some interoperability layers to both directions but other than that have nothing in common. WinForms is more or less a lightweight wrapper on top of Win32/MFC, which means it's extensibility in .Net is not that good in all cases. WPF is a new UI framework implemented from scratch. WPF is also much more flexible when it comes to customizing the existing types.

However, at least from my experience, WinForms seems to be the more commonly used desktop UI framework in the industry. WinForms can't be used with web development though while WPF offers SilverLight and XBAP applications.

If you have done any UI development before, I'd dare say WinForms is easier to learn as it follows more traditional programming paradigms. The programming model of WPF is quite different to this. While WPF can be used in the same way as WinForms, most of its benefits are not achieved until you embrace the data binding and encapsulation WPF provides.

Despite stating some points in favor of WinForms choosing WPF over WinForms would be no brainer for me if all you want to do is learn an UI framework. It's superior to WinForms in all aspects. I just wish the software industry in general would adapt it on larger scale! (Though not like anyone writes desktop applications anymore since we got the web.)

 

I got this from here after a quick google

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2685150/wpf-or-windows-forms

 

I hope this helps you quickly because I don't think you would have gotten a fast response otherwise

[samuelbetrisey]

Thank you @Tycho

[trag1c]

Im pretty sure that WPF is displayed via direct3D where as winforms is simply Win32.