Windows Forms Has At Least Another Decade In It

Apparently Robert had a conversation with a customer that was holding up .NET adoption because Longhorn was coming with Avalon. If you’re already planning on building Longhorn-only applications, more power to you, but most folks will need to write apps that run on other versions of Windows for some time to come. For those folks, we have .NET and Windows Forms today and for at least another decade. Let’s do the math:

• According to recent industry rumor, Longhorn won’t ship ’til 2006.
• According to our internal OS folks, a new OS isn’t ubiquitous enough to target it as a base for new consumer application work for 6 years.
• Even 2 years after .NET was available everywhere, people are still actively doing the MFC and VB6 thing.
• 2 years ’til 2006 + 6 years ’til ubiquity + 2 years not doing the new thing = 10 years of good, strong life left in Windows Forms at least.

In spite of my love on Avalon, I’m so confidendent that Windows Forms has a life left that I’m working with Mike on Windows Forms Programming 2/e. A book is hard enough that you don’t do it if the topic is dead, so that’s me putting my time (and Addison-Wesley’s money) where my mouth is.