The future of the (Windows) desktop application development: the future of WPF and Silverlight [closed]

Question

Recently I have read some articles/blogs/comments about the development and history of WPF and Silverlight. In some forums many developers and users criticize the performance of WPF applications (for example Visual Studio 2010). Actually the market share of Silverlight in comparison to Flash is not very high. At PDC 2010 Bob Muglia said something like "our Silverlight strategy and focus going forward has shifted...." and Microsoft wants to push HTML5 in the future.

I have started learning WPF and Silverlight some months ago and now I must ask myself, if I should continue investing time in learning and practicing these (in my opinions) very nice and powerful technologies!? Do they have a future? Do (Windows) desktop (client) applications have a future? Do so-called "Rich Internet Applications" have a future? Or will HTML5 become the "absolute truth" - the main platform for software development?

What is your opinion and what do you think?

Answer 1

This is extremely speculative, but a few key points:

1. There will never be a single "absolute truth" in software development. Different tools are used for different purposes to address different problems.
2. Do you enjoy writing software in WPF and Silverlight? Do you find them to be useful tools for crafting quality software? Are you good at it? If so, then why stop?
3. Focus more on writing software and less on the tools you use. Familiarity with a wide selection of tools is important, but don't let the tools take your focus off of what you're doing... writing software. If the tool becomes a crutch, something is wrong. If you're making a career out of being familiar with a given tool, something is wrong. It's better to be a "software developer who knows Silverlight" than a "Silverlight developer."

Answer 2

I have very similar questions as yours. Since these questions are subjective, people tend to have different answers on the future of WPF and Silverlight. To me, HTML5 will never replace a technology like WPF. They say "never say never", but even if it is to replace it, it won't happen anytime soon. HTML5 looks to me like Silverlight and Flash. We won't need to install plugins (even this claim is subjective because both Silverlight and Flash are advancing, so will HTML5 really fully catch up with those?). Also, last time I checked out some HTML5 samples, I noticed that once you refresh your webpage, animations start from the beginning - something Flash is (to me) badly famous for.

WPF is a different technology. I am not a web developer myself, but honestly, I'd hate to have to have a bunch of tools in my toolbox like HTML, CSS, Javascript. You can use a single framework instead and develop what you want in WPF. It's a great technology yet to be discovered by many developers. Of course, that brings us to the question of "Do I go with the desktop or the web?"

As for the future of desktop development, it is not going anywhere anytime soon either. I see a growing tendency to develop web applications, but we have to realize that both desktop development and cloud development have their pros and cons. Right now, I find web apps slow and I am guessing web apps are not as capable as desktop apps. The future of Windows development depends on the market share of Windows. If Microsoft can keep up their monopoly and your application is useful and interesting, I don't think users will ignore it. I think the difference between desktop development and web development is blurring, and as physical machines get more and more powerful, there will be less users complaining about performance issues and frequent updates. Why do we even bother to ask users if they want to update their software? I think such prompts are annoying like hell. It should be more preferable to install the updates silently and let the user use the application next time they run it.

P.S. WPF will be more popular than WinForms, and hopefully MS will discontinue the latter one day. So, it gives you one more open door to invest in it.

Also, I've always hated the idea of my application running inside a browser. I guess that makes me selfish, but I don't want to worry about browsers crashing, browser incompatibilites, browsers not yet supporting certain features of a technology, and so on.

Answer 3

The quote from Bob Muglia was misunderstood and blown way out of proportion. Microsoft's focus has not shifted away from Silverlight as so many people assumed from his interview. It's just that Silverlight is now being used in different ways (business apps, apps for the phone, etc) and their focus has changed accordingly.

• Silverlight Questions (words from Scott Guthrie)
• Announcing Silverlight 5 (a sneak peek at what's to come)

And then comparing to Flash is not really fair as Flash has had a huge head start. Flash was introduced in 1996 and has had a long time to spread. What I've looked at more is Silverlight growth over the years. RiaStats.com now shows a 63% adoption rate for Silverlight 4 which is quite good. There are still times when that adoption rate is a little low for a mainstream app. But the fact that it continues to grow shows promise for Silverlight's future.

On a slightly more subjective note, I'm a fan of Silverlight's portability. The fact that it's still a ~5MB download and runs in or out of the browser on a PC or a Mac is very nice. And then Silverlight is also being used on WP7, and soon the XBOX as well. Just by learning Silverlight you open yourself up to develop for a variety of computers and devices.