The road ahead

[Andy ONeill]

Now 2 months on and I've still not really started on the game.
Due to other commitments I've not been able to work full time on this project.
Hence there's still probably 6 months work to do.

At the moment Microsoft is moving focus from .Net 4.x to .Net Core which is now version 2.2.
Version 3.0 is imminent and will support WPF, which is what this suite is written in.
WPF is, and will be, Windows only.

You might wonder why we'd want to move to .net core 3.0.
2 reasons:

It runs faster. At least it does for web sites, I've not been able to do any desktop development using it yet.

Longevity.  We want these games to have as long a life as possible and the latest framework will be in support longer.

[Grim.Reaper]

Now 2 months on and I've still not really started on the game.
Due to other commitments I've not been able to work full time on this project.
Hence there's still probably 6 months work to do.

At the moment Microsoft is moving focus from .Net 4.x to .Net Core which is now version 2.2.
Version 3.0 is imminent and will support WPF, which is what this suite is written in.
WPF is, and will be, Windows only.

You might wonder why we'd want to move to .net core 3.0.
2 reasons:

It runs faster. At least it does for web sites, I've not been able to do any desktop development using it yet.

Longevity.  We want these games to have as long a life as possible and the latest framework will be in support longer.

Hello, don't mean to hijack thread and we can move to private messaging or other means if more applicable.  I do development myself and was curious about .Net core vs framework so was hoping you could give me your perspective on it.

1)  I believe the first public beta was just released....do you have any idea when final release is planned?

2)  You mentioned Microsoft was moving their focus from framework to core....I hadn't heard that and thought they would largely be side by side with standard sharing best of both worlds.  Do you have an article somewhere that says Microsoft plans to more support core in the future?  Is frameworks going away?

3)  You mentioned core would be faster....any more context there?  Is it just faster computing numbers or will it be faster in drawing forms, graphics, etc. ?  Always hoped windows forms would be more efficiently displayed on the screen.

4)  Any other benefits of core for desktop applications?

Appreciate any info you might have.

[Andy ONeill]

1)  I believe the first public beta was just released....do you have any idea when final release is planned?

I should think it's not far off but MS aren't committing beyond 2019.
Maybe I should be adopting their approach. Never promise delivery until a week before you go live. That'd make estimating a lot easier.

2)  You mentioned Microsoft was moving their focus from framework to core....I hadn't heard that and thought they would largely be side by side with standard sharing best of both worlds.  Do you have an article somewhere that says Microsoft plans to more support core in the future?  Is frameworks going away?

There's going to be a net 4.8 and the rumour is that will be the last version of regular full fat .Net.
This is two sets of code they'd be maintaining and there are already things they've announced will not make it into .Net core.
WebForms for one.


3)  You mentioned core would be faster....any more context there?  Is it just faster computing numbers or will it be faster in drawing forms, graphics, etc. ?  Always hoped windows forms would be more efficiently displayed on the screen.

As they port code from regular .net to .net core the devs have made a number of improvements which make things faster. It's noticeable on a web app.  Loads of stuff has had minor improvement and you'd probably not even know you're using it. One specific thing is Linq's .ToList() which I use all over the place.  That's significantly improved.
I doubt they'll change fundamentals in wpf like how the graphics is rendered.
It'd be a huge piece of work.

4)  Any other benefits of core for desktop applications?

Net Core is side by side compatible.
Meaning you can have .Net2.2 and .Net3 and whatever versions you like on a machine.
You can compile the referenced framework dll into the exe so you have a single deliverable.

Winforms gets some improvements for high dpi monitors. Personally I wouldn't write anything serious using winforms by YMMV.

One less-than-obvious thing is breaking everything out into smaller NuGet open sourced pieces. Like those behaviours.  Assuming anyone AT ALL is interested in adding stuff then they can and everyone potentially gets the benefit.

The wpf stuff will be delivered as a separate add-on from .Net core.
I guess this will probably also go open source.
In which case the guy who posted to the wpf msdn forum the other day about a bug using BindingList as an itemssource can push his suggested change and everyone gets it.

In the dim distant future it's possible you could find other add ons which are similar to wpf.
Maybe Avalonia.

[Grim.Reaper]

Appreciate all the additional information.  Just curious, have you downloaded the 3.0 preview and Visual Studio 2019 preview?  For the life of me I can't seem to create a net core 3 desktop app, all the options target the framework still.  According to press releases, was suppose to be available.  I must be doing something wrong.

[Andy ONeill]

I've not.
Did you see
http://brianlagunas.com/getting-started-net-core-3-create-wpf-application/

[Grim.Reaper]

I've not.
Did you see
http://brianlagunas.com/getting-started-net-core-3-create-wpf-application/

Thank you, that was perfect.  Didn't realize you needed to manually create the project files in the preview version to get the right targets.  Appreciated the tip.

[Andy ONeill]

Yes, you need to manually edit files you wouldn't usually think of editing.

What this means in non-technical terms is that .Net Core 3.0 preview is still rather bleeding edge prototype stuff.

I'll be waiting for a far more stable version before trying to convert this suite.

[Grim.Reaper]

thanks makes sense, doesn’t seem like the designer tools working yet so will be waiting a bit myself...just anxious to see what they did.