Is WPF a good technology for software engineers to learn?

Question

So I'm seeing a lot of C# software engineer job ads asking for lots of experience with WPF lately. I have not worked with WPF before, but it seems like it would be more of a designer oriented technology, not necessarily something that a programmer would need to know in depth. Now, I know there are a lot of cross-cutting skills (what programmer doesn't know HTML) but I'm wondering how much emphasis, if any, I should dedicate to learning WPF.

I know this is a little subjective, but I'd like to get people's thoughts on the importance of WPF from a developer's perspective.

Answer 1

If you want to create Windows UIs, you should learn WPF. It has nothing to do with designers, it's a UI framework, just like Winforms (only way better).

Answer 2

WPF is important if you are writing any new UIs for Windows in .NET. It is newer than windows forms and actually less people have the skill, and it is just reaching the point where companies that are currently using Windows Forms are switching to WPF or Silverlight, so the demand for WPF developers is increasing.

Paul Betts was a little off when he said: "It has nothing to do with designers.."

It has a lot to do with designers. WPF was architected with the designer heavily in mind. However, that doesn't mean a developer doesn't need to know WPF.

Sure you can just use WPF as a UI framework just like Windows Forms but you are losing out on the main benefit.

WPF was architected in a way so that the designer and the developer can both use the UI framework for what they do: designers design, developers develop.

• A designer can jump into Expression Blend and make a really slick application design and even design a lot of application "movement". The designer can do quite a lot and quite quickly.
• The developer can create business logic and provide data and integrate the business logic with the WPF. You can manipulate WPF using binding, which means no code-behind and design patterns such as MVVM are based on this, but you can still use code behind to manipulate WPF elements.

Self training sites:

1. http://windowsclient.net/learn/videos_wpf.aspx

   (The next two sites are both "in progress" training courses, meaning they aren't finished)

2. http://www.wpfsharp.com/learning/wpf-self-training-course-for-developers/

3. http://www.wpftutorial.net/LearnWPFin14Days.html