Hello!

I recently started to look into WPF for a new project that is about to commence at my place of work. I haven't really had the need or requirement to want to know anything about WPF or even Silverlight for that matter but, due to the nature of the business and where the company is wanting to go in the future I thought it would be prudent to do some research.

I know your thinking that I should have already put my thumb into the pie and know all there is to know about both WPF and Silverlight and you're right! It's just that time is never available for me to spend on gathering details on technologies that I don't have an immediate need to understand. When WPF and Silverlight (WPF/E as it was initially known) first came on the scene I did have a look and felt that it was not yet mature enough for me to invest my time with but all that has changed.

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a book (Sams Teach Yourself WPF in 24 Hours - ISBN:9780672329852) in an attempt to get up to speed as quickly as I could. I didn't get very far into the hours (hour 5 I think) and I realised that WPF is possibly the platform that should be used for the next project in the company. I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that WinForms was the wrong choice and that we'll need to come back and re-invent everything again in a couple of years.

Indeed, the very next Monday I arrived at work and called a meeting to discuss what I had found out about WPF and what it would mean to the business for the future. I was a little dissappointed at the response I got. It was almost as if the team was not at all interested in investing the time into implementing WPF as the next technology framework for the business. Of course I got the 'let's look further into it' standard response which is never encouraging. Perhaps I'm being a bit too keen in my approach to WPF? I don't think I am but I just can't sit still and let the business make a mistake I know will come back to haunt me a short time later.

If you have any suggestions or ideas to share on how to better sell the WPF platform I would appreciate hearing them.

Just recently I started to learn and understand what WPF is about. I've been unable to delve into WPF and/or Silverlight as I have not had a lot of time in which to spend in learning a different technology due to other projects and family committments.

I now wish that I had put some time aside for these technologies because WPF and Silverlight are both amazing! Just the small fraction of knowledge that I have now of WPF and what I've been able to do in a short time span even has me in a spin. I've put most of my time (all of a week so far) into WPF and only a couple of hours into Silverlight but my very limited experience into these two frameworks has me completely convinced that I need to spend a lot more time developing in WPF and/or Silverlight and a lot less time on WinForms.

A friend of mine, Paul Stovell, has been working with WPF for some time now and the initial work that he did was very impressive (even more so considering that there was no real IDE support in VS for designing WPF UIs at that time). I would have jumped onto the WPF scene too but felt that I really needed to continue honing my skills on .NET 2.0 and WinForms development. Now that the clock has been ticking for some time I find myself in the position of not only wanting to know all there is to know about WPF but it may just be that my place of work might be heading in the WPF direction too....all the better for me ;)

In a short time I've been able to start a new project of my own. I've used some DevExpress components for a carousel on the main page and will also use their docking component (both look very sweet). I have even been able to create my own icons using Expression Design and incorporate them into the application as Static Resources and apply them to buttons, shapes, backgrounds etc. I really like the idea of using Expression Design to create custom icons as they're resizable and do not lose defition of become granular due the simple fact that the icons are vector based.

Anyway, I feel that I'm rambling on a bit too much without actually saying much...

e.