Is Winforms dead now?

Question

Windows Forms has been on the market for approximately 17 years since. NET Framework 1.0 released in 2002, and still remains one of the major limitations of running only on Windows, as its name suggests, and now with the coming of other interfaces that have succeeded it like WPF and UWP it seems even more certain.

Then Windows Forms or winforms is actually dead? Or at least almost dead? Or would that still be an exaggerated assumption?

Answer 1

It’s exaggerated to think of the way Windows Forms is dead the way I thought .NET Framework was dead. Although both are being replaced by newer, innovative and modern technologies, they continue to be supported. Windows Forms is still used today for small and large purposes for its greater aspect: it is simple.

The purpose of drag-drop of the components of Windows Forms makes its development so simple and easy that it does not need to study in depth about to develop beautiful applications. Recently, Microsoft took Windows Forms to the . NET Core, which reminds us that Microsoft thinks about it, and consequently adapts its old technology into its new ones. Soon, we can see Windows Forms running natively on a Linux or Mac, the purpose of .NET 5 that’s it, after all.

What will happen to old technologies?

The simplest answer is: you will adapt the new ones, without losing their nature. The . NET Framework will be replaced by the . NET Core, just as Windows Forms can be replaced by a future Windows Forms Core (this is an assumption, it doesn’t exist). Since these technologies are now open-source, anyone can port or create their version.

and now with the coming of other interfaces that have succeeded it like WPF and UWP it seems even more certain.

They are platforms newer than Windows Forms, but with different purposes. WPF comes from XAML, a language created by Microsoft to adapt Mobile, Xamarin and Desktop developers into a single structure. UWP came with the purpose of being a perfected XAML, that the only code run on any platform, as long as it is Windows.

None is as simple as Windows Forms, and both Microsoft and its community are aware of this.

For those who do not know, the . NET Core 3 already supports some scenarios that previously did not work in it, such as the use of Winforms, WPF, EF6, and others. The scenarios that it does not support yet, will not be supported because it is very bad and should be abandoned in favor of the best solutions it has for Core. And there’s one for all who may yet be useful.

Taken from Maniero’s reply of this question.

Microsoft wants you to use their technologies, regardless of what platform/system it is, and they’re trying to make it easier with. NET Core since its launch. Technology . NET is now present in all operating systems thanks to . NET Core.

In short, the Windows Forms of . NET Framework is stopping slowly, there is no reason to use it anymore, as well as one day the . NET Framework will be retired as well. O . NET Core (and in the future .NET, only) is there, with everything we’re used to, including Windows Forms.

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This can also be useful:

• Is Windows Forms Dead? (In English)
• Why isn’t Windows Forms dead yet? (In English)
• The death of Windows Forms was a great exaggeration. (In English)