Quick WPF question

(no trolling, no flames intended..)

When comparing WPF to Macromedia Flash, really, what's the difference? When I'm trying to solicit WPF to other people, and they answer, "there's nothing in there I can't do in Flash".. What's my response?

Flash is a vector animation tool. WPF is a full blown visual application framework. Sure I bet you can do most of the flashy animations that WPF supports in Flash, but you try writing a real application in ActionScript. No thanks.

Sven Groot wrote:

Flash is a vector animation tool. WPF is a full blown visual application framework. Sure I bet you can do most of the flashy animations that WPF supports in Flash, but you try writing a real application in ActionScript. No thanks.

But for those that are used to Flash (specifically designers), how to convince them to move to WPF? Especially for Web Apps? Which Flash  doesn't have to wait for plug ins, like WPF?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of WPF, but this likely will not be able to be "sold" to my collegues.. I'm just looking for ammo.

MisterDonut wrote:

But for those that are used to Flash (specifically designers), how to convince them to move to WPF? Especially for Web Apps? Which Flash  doesn't have to wait for plug ins, like WPF?

You really can't. Whatever advantages WPF brings to the table, is WAY offset by the disadvantages. Vista only, and BY FAR the change in workflow. 2D graphics & animation is what Flash does pretty well, and you're just not going to be able to change those minds.

Minh wrote:

You really can't. Whatever advantages WPF brings to the table, is WAY offset by the disadvantages. Vista only, and BY FAR the change in workflow. 2D graphics & animation is what Flash does pretty well, and you're just not going to be able to change those minds.

Slight inaccuracy there. Avalon is for XP too but i suppose your point remains. Avalon is a superset of flash. Sure you have 2D and animations but you also have 3D, easy databinding, voice, complex video manipulation and so much more. To be honest to see the most benefit you'll probably need to be a bit in both the designer and developer camps.

- Relatively easy-to-use 3-D elements and transformations (spinning objects, skewing them, lighting them, mapping video to those elements, etc.).

- The whole power of .NET (need to send an email?  get something out of a database?  use encryption?  use regexes?) .NET allows using multiple languages and is much richer than ActionScript.

- The ability to separate code from UI and work on them in parallel.  Most people tend to be either good coders or designers, but usually aren't stellar at both.  WPF will allow the coders to work in parallel on unfinished designs by designers.  That cuts the time to deliver.

I am not sure you can sell designers on intellectual/logical arguments though.    The proof is in the pudding.  Designers are visual people; you are going to have to SHOW them something that's going to knock their socks off.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a huge number of sock-knocking demos out there yet.  I liked the North Face demo, but it just made my socks sag around the ankles.  Likewise the 3M eLearning demo.

You could also check out http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=62621 which I'm sure you've seen

Or you could load up Microsoft Max and say, "Now picture this in a web page." 

I really think Microsoft did it the right way (coming up with the foundation PROGRAMMING API and then adding vector animations to it) rather than Flash (coming up with vector animations and then tacking on programming).

Plus I think WPF is going to work better with the high-dpi displays that will come out in the future.  Flash is vectors, but there's a lot of references to pixels, and Flash apps may not scale as gracefully on high-dpi displays unless the developer jumps through a lot of hoops to check the dpi & resolutions.  Scaling and resizing apps under WPF (and having them still work) seems like it's easier than Flash.

Bottom line, most people are sheep and they're gonna need to see someone else do something cool in WPF before it really takes off.

EDIT: The counter to the "there's nothing I can't do in X" argument is to compare the COST of doing it.  You are going to see some cool things in a dozen lines of XAML that would take a hundred lines in Flash (if you could do them in Flash at all).  So it's not really "can you do it in Flash," but HOW LONG does it take you to do in Flash vs. WPF.  (Not looking to start a flame war, but this is how C# wins over C++, BTW)

The general feeling I'm getting from WPF is that it's really cool for Microsoft programmers.. But won't win any converts from the graphic artist world. And I've already heard (after showing the "halo" demo, thanks, karim!) that "Thats what the Mac does..".

Just trying to be an MS advocate.. It's a shame there isn't a publically available compare-list out there.. Is Vista's Vector graphics better than Mac OSX's vector graphics, and by what measurement, etc...

I appreciate the feedback. Any more would be welcome as well.

MisterDonut wrote:

The general feeling I'm getting from WPF is that it's really cool for Microsoft programmers.. But won't win any converts from the graphic artist world. And I've already heard (after showing the "halo" demo, thanks, karim!) that "Thats what the Mac does..".

Just trying to be an MS advocate.. It's a shame there isn't a publically available compare-list out there.. Is Vista's Vector graphics better than Mac OSX's vector graphics, and by what measurement, etc...

I appreciate the feedback. Any more would be welcome as well.

I am not sure that's the tack I would take to evangelize WPF.

History is full of wars between technologies, and the "superior" technology does not always win.  Betamax lost to VHS even though Betamax was technically superior.  Why did Betamax lose?  Because Sony charged huge licensing fees, which made VHS cheaper, and in the end, only the geeks who were really into measuring lines of resolution or signal-to-noise ended up in the Sony camp.  Almost everyone else couldn't tell the difference and went with what was cheaper (VHS).

At the very end, Sony got a clue and started licensing the ability to make Betamax recorders to other vendors (like VHS) but by then it was too late, VHS had won.

My point is that you can only "prove" the technical superiority of something with "speeds and feeds," "megabytes and megahertz" only so much.

In the long run people do not always go with the technically superior -- they go with the most PRACTICAL.  In a lot of cases that boils down to "how much does it cost," "does it allow me to do more with less," "does it finish the job in less time," "does it run on more systems" etc. etc. etc.

Those all correspond to emotional arguments -- YES you'll have more money in your wallet.  YES you'll spend less time at work and more having fun.  YES your work will have a wider audience.  YES this has less drudgery and more fun.

There's a reason why advertisers talk in those terms.

If WPF wins, it will be because people can either do the SAME thing as Flash in less time, or COOLER things than Flash in the same amount of time.  Not specifically because of WPF compositing or subpixel antialiasing or pixel shader support or anything technical like that.  "Normal" people respond to stuff that looks cool, not to descriptions of memory buffers.

You could also be the "bad" evangelist and make the emotional argument that they are going to LOSE OUT if they DON'T jump on WPF.  Might as well start learning it now, because Flash's days are numbered.  You don't want to be the last graphic artist on your block who stops using MacPaint... Aldus PageMaker... Type 1 Fonts... OS 9... do you?  [evil laugh]  [6]

Of course, good evangelists always believe (fervently) in what they are preaching.  [A]

MisterDonut wrote:

The general feeling I'm getting from WPF is that it's really cool for Microsoft programmers.. But won't win any converts from the graphic artist world. And I've already heard (after showing the "halo" demo, thanks, karim!) that "Thats what the Mac does..".

Just trying to be an MS advocate.. It's a shame there isn't a publically available compare-list out there.. Is Vista's Vector graphics better than Mac OSX's vector graphics, and by what measurement, etc...

I appreciate the feedback. Any more would be welcome as well.

I forgot to mention Avalon isn't XP & Vista only anymore. With WPF/A or whatever it ends up being called you will be able to display XAML with JavaScript backend.

If your designer folks are interested in 3D have them play with Zam3D and explain that each object can potentially be used in any way in an application. Wrap some video around a sphere. If you can identify any frustrations or shortcomings they constantly discover with flash and do it in Avalon. There's so many things but without showing a designer it will be hard for them to grasp, roll on Sparkle CTP.

andokai wrote:

I forgot to mention Avalon isn't XP & Vista only anymore.

WPF for XP is going to require the Avalon & CLR download -- and Flash is a browser plugin that in all likelyhood, already installed. WPF may as well not exist for XP.

andokai wrote:

With WPF/A or whatever it ends up being called you will be able to display XAML with JavaScript backend.

Since WPF/E will be implemented w/ Javascript, you know it'll only be a subset of WPF. Doubtful if it will support ANY of the 3D functionality. But we'll see... I can't help but side w/ Gartner that Vista won't be a major player 'til 2008.

Karim wrote:

the geeks who were really into measuring lines of resolution or signal-to-noise

Leave Scoble outa this..

Beer28 wrote:

will wpf work in any browser, like say mine?

If memory serves me right, WPF (ande WPF/E) will work on IE (obviously), Firefox, and Safari. Likely, Firefox only on the Windows Platform, although I haven't heard that for sure.

Although, I'm sure you'll be able to put different graphics for non-suported browsers (XAML for supported browsers, HTML for non-supported ones). If it's XAML, and since XAML is not platform dependent (it's a markup language), there's no reason an alternative technology couldn't be used to display XAML, if one existed, and someone built an interpreter.

Which brings an interesting question. Does anyone know if someome is building (or trying to build) an FOSS version of WPF? Or something comparable? Something that could intepret a XAML page?

Another cool idea would be a WPF-to-Flash converter. Although it can only convert a portion of the possibilities, it can make WPF more acceptable. Picture this: a website can detect the client, and decide whether to send XAML, or SWF to the browser (SWF generated by server-side converter).

Minh wrote:

WPF for XP is going to require the Avalon & CLR download -- and Flash is a browser plugin that in all likelyhood, already installed. WPF may as well not exist for XP.

Could you not say the same thing for the entire .net framework?

Minh wrote:

Since WPF/E will be implemented w/ Javascript, you know it'll only be a subset of WPF. Doubtful if it will support ANY of the 3D functionality. But we'll see...

It may not have the full blown functionality of standard Avalon but it will encourage effective reuse of graphics and UIs for different scenarios. The vector graphics can be used interacively in powerful desktop apps, through WPF/E for other OSs and devices and for print using XPS.

I think any designer is going to appreciate only having to do a graphic once. And of course little tweaks and changes only require a copy of the graphic and a text editor not the original project and a copy of flash.

Minh wrote:

I can't help but side w/ Gartner that Vista won't be a major player 'til 2008.

Sure, it may take some time for Vista to be taken up, but that wasn't what he asked.

MisterDonut wrote:

If memory serves me right, WPF (ande WPF/E) will work on IE (obviously), Firefox, and Safari. Likely, Firefox only on the Windows Platform, although I haven't heard that for sure.

WPF will work on Vista obviously, but WPF/E, a subset, will work on all browser -- that's the theory anyway. Since WPF/E will be implemented using Javascript for Safari & Firefox, it'll be a rather small subset of WPF.

MisterDonut wrote:

Which brings an interesting question. Does anyone know if someome is building (or trying to build) an FOSS version of WPF? Or something comparable? Something that could intepret a XAML page?

An interesting question is the legality question. MS has released the CLS, so people like Mono can implement .Net. For certain, I remember at least one patent in the WPF, the animation over time thingy. So, unless MS release those patents, you can't really copy WPF.

andokai wrote:

Minh wrote:WPF for XP is going to require the Avalon & CLR download -- and Flash is a browser plugin that in all likelyhood, already installed. WPF may as well not exist for XP.

Could you not say the same thing for the entire .net framework?

My point is that developing for Flash would require at most a plugin. Developing for WPF will require either Vista or a 30 MB download.

andokai wrote:

It may not have the full blown functionality of standard Avalon but it will encourage effective reuse of graphics and UIs for different scenarios. The vector graphics can be used interacively in powerful desktop apps, through WPF/E for other OSs and devices and for print using XPS.

I guess the devil is in the detail. How much of WPF will make it into WPF/E?

andokai wrote:

Minh wrote:I can't help but side w/ Gartner that Vista won't be a major player 'til 2008.

Sure, it may take some time for Vista to be taken up, but that wasn't what he asked.

If you're trying to convince people to change their workflow right now, doesn't it make sense to know that those changes won't pay off until 2008?

Minh wrote:

My point is that developing for Flash would require at most a plugin. Developing for WPF will require either Vista or a 30 MB download.

And my point is that the same argument could be made against the .net framework. Should it be ignored for desktop apps until Vista arrives and it is bundled by default? If there's a compelling reason to install it then it will be installed, just like DirectX or Service Pack 2.

Minh wrote:

How much of WPF will make it into WPF/E?

That's a question I cannot answer, but if I was to hazard a guess I'd say it would be quite similar to flash's or SVG's capability.

Minh wrote:

If you're trying to convince people to change their workflow right now, doesn't it make sense to know that those changes won't pay off until 2008?

True, but you're basing this on your assertion that WPF won't appear on XP machines and the presumption based on one artice that Vista won't be taken up until 2008. Neither of which I would feel comfortable relying upon.

All that said I'm not saying rush out and switch over to WPF. It won't even be viable for designers until the Expression suite becomes available. I've never met a designer that was swayed by a feature list, but show them a cool tool and it's a different matter. This was the major downfall of SVG.