Going forward with desktop application development

Solarion

Solarion

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So once every few years it's a good thing to review our skills and see what might be lacking. I would like to please pick your brains and see what it is I need to do to add to my skills and go forward.

Do you guys use Entity Framework? If not how do you handle all your CRUD?

For the UI side. Should I move to WPF?
 
What are your existing skills?

Yes we use entity framework, but it lacks in several ways like bulk data processing. However it's good to know.
Why desktop application specifically? Web applications and cloud services are a big thing these days.
 
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Solarion said:
So once every few years it's a good thing to review our skills and see what might be lacking. I would like to please pick your brains and see what it is I need to do to add to my skills and go forward.

Do you guys use Entity Framework? If not how do you handle all your CRUD?

For the UI side. Should I move to WPF?
Click to expand...

I use Entity Framework in web apps. Strangely enough I haven't used it in desktop applications. I've used Dapper a lot in desktop applications though.

I moved to WPF from Winforms and initially it's a pain. Once you get used to it it's quick and easy to work with.
 
Solitude said:
I use Entity Framework in web apps. Strangely enough I haven't used it in desktop applications. I've used Dapper a lot in desktop applications though.

I moved to WPF from Winforms and initially it's a pain. Once you get used to it it's quick and easy to work with.
Click to expand...


I've used EF and Dapper on all variations of web/services/desktop. With Dapper you just need to create an object that matches the table, then it'll take care of all the default CRUD. After that its just performance on big queries you need to look into.

I don't do WPF, I just stick with WinForms usually, although we also add some other libs like DevExpress which the company uses to prettify things (for both Web and desktop) and for some specific controls they created.
 
schuits said:
What are your existing skills?

Yes we use entity framework, but it lacks in several ways like bulk data processing. However it's good to know.
Why desktop application specifically? Web applications and cloud services are a big thing these days.
Click to expand...

I don't do web development. I know it's big but I've tried it and it never took so I stick with WinForms. Skills are C#, VB.NET, SQL, SSRS and that's pretty much it. I'm wanting to improve on what I have.

animal531 said:
I've used EF and Dapper on all variations of web/services/desktop. With Dapper you just need to create an object that matches the table, then it'll take care of all the default CRUD. After that its just performance on big queries you need to look into.

I don't do WPF, I just stick with WinForms usually, although we also add some other libs like DevExpress which the company uses to prettify things (for both Web and desktop) and for some specific controls they created.
Click to expand...

I've heard that I don't need to do WPF. I'd rather avoid it if I can and perhaps add onto WinForms dev. I'll look into Dapper.

Edit: Reporting, what do you guys use ssrs? Are any of you ever asked to do Interops Excel reports?
 
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/subscribes

I do web only desktop is disappearing in the coming years imo, but right now, it's still alive and I tried to make an app using WPF, let's just say I need to play around more before I'll get the hang of this.
 
Thor said:
/subscribes

I do web only desktop is disappearing in the coming years imo, but right now, it's still alive and I tried to make an app using WPF, let's just say I need to play around more before I'll get the hang of this.
Click to expand...

You think Chromebooks (or alike), will become the norm? What do you think of Spring?
 
beans100 said:
You think Chromebooks (or alike), will become the norm? What do you think of Spring?
Click to expand...
No, what will become the norm is cloud hosted applications, Google docs replaced the traditional office suite and office 365 is already moving to the browser for example.
 
Thor said:
No, what will become the norm is cloud hosted applications, Google docs replaced the traditional office suite and office 365 is already moving to the browser for example.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's actually what I meant.
 
beans100 said:
Yes, that's actually what I meant.
Click to expand...

Ahh,

I know about the Spring Framework, but never used it.

The most complex desktop app I build was a crypto ticker with c# that uses my public API from coindata meaning there was nothing "backend" wise it was just pulling json data and displaying in a WPF table. :crylaugh: I got the feeling I need a graphic designer to make desktop apps viable vs CSS on the web - which I can do.
 
Solarion said:
Edit: Reporting, what do you guys use ssrs? Are any of you ever asked to do Interops Excel reports?
Click to expand...

Yeah pretty much SSRS now. Old days was Crystal Reports and OLE with word/excel.

I'm also looking at up-skilling myself. Angular, .Net Core, Xamarin, Task Parallelism are some of the things I'll be looking at more.
 
For normal reporting we use SSRS, but we also have a lot of other applications and tools that are using Excel and PDF as input/output.
 
Used to do WPF couple of years ago, moved away from that in favor of a web based .NET backend stack.
 
schuits said:
Yeah pretty much SSRS now. Old days was Crystal Reports and OLE with word/excel.

I'm also looking at up-skilling myself. Angular, .Net Core, Xamarin, Task Parallelism are some of the things I'll be looking at more.
Click to expand...

Can't go wrong with Xamarin.
 
Just reading all this I think I could a refresher course. It's been several years since my last. Perhaps one of the Microsoft certifications?

If I'm going to stick win Window Forms dev then I surely need to do a refresher. What do you guys suggest? By the way your help is GOLD. I can't get this kind of feedback from anyone else, literally.
 
animal531 said:
I've used EF and Dapper on all variations of web/services/desktop. With Dapper you just need to create an object that matches the table, then it'll take care of all the default CRUD. After that its just performance on big queries you need to look into.

I don't do WPF, I just stick with WinForms usually, although we also add some other libs like DevExpress which the company uses to prettify things (for both Web and desktop) and for some specific controls they created.
Click to expand...

Most of my time is taken up programming the CRUD procedures and Validation. I'm going to take Dapper on board and learn it, use it.
 
Just reading all this I think I could a refresher course. It's been several years since my last. Perhaps one of the Microsoft certifications?

If I'm going to stick win Window Forms dev then I surely need to do a refresher. What do you guys suggest? By the way your help is GOLD. I can't get this kind of feedback from anyone else, literally.

animal531 said:
I've used EF and Dapper on all variations of web/services/desktop. With Dapper you just need to create an object that matches the table, then it'll take care of all the default CRUD. After that its just performance on big queries you need to look into.

I don't do WPF, I just stick with WinForms usually, although we also add some other libs like DevExpress which the company uses to prettify things (for both Web and desktop) and for some specific controls they created.
Click to expand...

Most of my time is taken up programming the CRUD procedures and Validation. I'm going to take Dapper on board and learn it, use it.

Shuits and Fransch mentioned Xamarin. This is mobile development yes? Good skill to add I take it?
 
For Dapper, go on Nuget and get Dapper, but also look into adding e.g. Dapper.Extensions.Linq, Dapper.Mapper, Dapper.SimpleCRUD, Dapper.SimpleLoad, Dapper.SimpleSave etc. (You can google all these on github for more info/usage). They add a lot of ease of use functionality which makes Dapper even easier.
 
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