WPF, C# on OS X

I remember reading in Mike Harsh's MSDN blog about C#/WPF coming to Mac OS X. Being a recent OS X convert (still use Windows for development though, I cannot STAND Cocoa for reasons beyond the scope of this post), I'm itching to get my hands on even the slightest detail behind the port of WPF to OS X.

So far, what is known about WPF/C# coming to the Mac? I hope it won't integrate with Xcode. Ohhh man do I hate Xcode.

Oh, also, who's doing the development?

/super-excited about this for no reason this afternoon
//traitor

ricodued wrote:

I remember reading in Mike Harsh's MSDN blog about C#/WPF coming to Mac OS X. Being a recent OS X convert (still use Windows for development though, I cannot STAND Cocoa for reasons beyond the scope of this post), I'm itching to get my hands on even the slightest detail behind the port of WPF to OS X.

So far, what is known about WPF/C# coming to the Mac? I hope it won't integrate with Xcode. Ohhh man do I hate Xcode.

Oh, also, who's doing the development?

/super-excited about this for no reason this afternoon
//traitor

WPF for the Mac isn't as fully-featured as the Windows version, right now I think of it as the WPF equivalent of what the Compact Framework is to the whole .NET Framework

///slasies!
////farker?

So I'll still be able to write apps in it, but the Mac CLR will be lacking certain features, like, say, SQL DB connectivity or MSMQ? Or is it just enough of the CLR to support UI operations?

Sounds good enough for me, so long as I get to stay far, far away from Cocoa. Though, if I could use Cocoa and skip the whole Xcode/IB thing, maybe it'd be tolerable.

/farker -- ricodued
//slashie slash slash

I personally tolerate Xcode and love Cocoa (it's really weird and different, but a lot of what it does differently starts making sense after you spend enough time thinking about it and playing with it). That said, I'm also really interested to learn about what's going to happen with WPF and C# on OS X.

Charles? Scoble? Any chance of a video? Or is there one already that I missed?

CyberGeek wrote:

I personally tolerate Xcode and love Cocoa (it's really weird and different, but a lot of what it does differently starts making sense after you spend enough time thinking about it and playing with it). That said, I'm also really interested to learn about what's going to happen with WPF and C# on OS X.

Xcode is not that bad, I just prefer the way Visual Studio is laid out.

Cocoa though.. Oh, man. It'd be one thing if it was just the obj-c, but it's the API. And why isn't the toolbar part of the control palette? That'd be so much simpler than writing fifty classes and such for each item. Ugh.

Where/how did you learn Cocoa? I can't find many tutorials that aren't condescending to Windows users or well-written.

ricodued wrote:

So I'll still be able to write apps in it, but the Mac CLR will be lacking certain features, like, say, SQL DB connectivity or MSMQ? Or is it just enough of the CLR to support UI operations?

Sounds good enough for me, so long as I get to stay far, far away from Cocoa. Though, if I could use Cocoa and skip the whole Xcode/IB thing, maybe it'd be tolerable.

Or just use Mono?

ricodued wrote:

/farker -- ricodued
//slashie slash slash

DarkSideDave

ricodued wrote:

Xcode is not that bad, I just prefer the way Visual Studio is laid out.

Cocoa though.. Oh, man. It'd be one thing if it was just the obj-c, but it's the API. And why isn't the toolbar part of the control palette? That'd be so much simpler than writing fifty classes and such for each item. Ugh.

Where/how did you learn Cocoa? I can't find many tutorials that aren't condescending to Windows users or well-written.

Well, I think I've got to agree with you on the toolbar bit. That's perhaps the main thing in Cocoa that I still don't understand the reasoning of. Other things have made sense after I've spent time thinking about them.

Just as a quick example before I get to your question, at first I thought it odd that all controls had doubleValue, intValue, stringValue, and other such methods. Not all controls have values that can logically be represented in those forms, so why have those methods? I got my answer after doing a currency conversion tutorial app where you plug in an amount of money and an exchange rate, then hit a convert button to get the converted amount of money. That tutorial app had one line of code, and this was it:

[result setDoubleValue: [amount doubleValue] * [rate doubleValue]];

I just stared at that line of code and thought of how I would've gotten the same effect in Java or C#:

try {
    double x = Double.parseDouble(amount.getText());
    double y = Double.parseDouble(rate.getText());
    result.setText((x * y).toString());
} catch (Exception e) {
    result.setText("0");
}

The difference between the two just blew me away. It was like seeing Quicksort in Haskell for the first time.

Anywho, where did I learn Cocoa? I use three main sources. First, I use Apple's own documentation. It can take awhile to figure out how to find what you want with it (I mostly just use the search box), but it's proven very helpful.

Second, I often refer to CocoaDev. It's a wiki, and while it contains a lot of information, I find it incredibly difficult to find anything without using its search feature.

Finally, I also use MacDevCenter from time to time. It's more of a collection of tutorials than it is an API reference, and most tutorials are somewhat out of date, but it's good at pointing you in the right direction.

I haven't found much insulting of Windows on any of those sites (which is important to me. While I'm enjoying Mac OS X and developing on it, I still really love Windows.)

Ah, much, much appreciated, CyberGeek. Maybe I'll play around with it later this afternoon.

W3bbo wrote:

Or just use Mono?

PPC. No Universal/Intel version as of yet.

EDIT: Just installed it anyways. Hopefully it works fine.

RETURN OF THE EDIT: Hrm. It seems to have just hidden on my system. Awesome.

THE EDIT STRIKES BACK: It's ugly, according to some screenshots in this tutorial. Looks like Windows 9x.