The time feels right. It’s time to learn WPF.
I equally enjoy developing for the desktop as much as I do distributed messaging but simply ripping open a new Windows Forms project these days has an overt sense of flouting the inevitable. Whilst it is clear that WCF was clearly the front runner of the technology stacks to be adopted from the 3.0 platform (mea culpa) many of us felt that WCF offered the most bang for buck in terms of early adoption, I cant help but think that my WinForm days are nearing an end and the sooner I get on board and bring WPF into my toolbox the better.
So I will start here and now and make a point of posting my progress and observations on the road to WPF enlightenment. I have begun this quest choosing an XBAP application that will indeed be available to download on my companies web site in the not too distant future. The application in question will be a Point Case Estimation tool that automatically pops out estimates based on uploaded XMI formatted UML diagrams and user declared values for all the technical and environmental factors that are pertinent to a given project. I will be enlisting the services of one of my colleagues (an application designer) to assist with using expression blend in making the application more visually appealing (as you can see from below it’s warranted - the image is my design) and it should serve as a useful foray into the brave new world of developer / designer partnership.
