There’s no guide because nobody wants to learn Windows Desktop programming anymore.
The Web has taken over everything, even use cases where it shouldn’t, because it’s a career dead-end.
The IDE is complicated because it’s an evolution of 30 years.
As for the UI:
- Win32: This is the C library for creating and manipulating Windows. This library is foundational.
- WinForms: .NET abstraction around Win32. Event-driven design. Every UI component is effectively a Window.
Very rich and complete; hard to write unit tests for; easy to peel away the abstraction.
Never going away.
- WPF: Reimagined UI library. Addresses the many limitations of WinForms. Inspired by HTML; steeper learning curve; designed to separate display from display logic, making unit testing a very possible.
The Web has taken over everything, even use cases where it shouldn’t, because it’s a career dead-end.
The IDE is complicated because it’s an evolution of 30 years.
As for the UI: - Win32: This is the C library for creating and manipulating Windows. This library is foundational.
- WinForms: .NET abstraction around Win32. Event-driven design. Every UI component is effectively a Window.
Very rich and complete; hard to write unit tests for; easy to peel away the abstraction.
Never going away.
- WPF: Reimagined UI library. Addresses the many limitations of WinForms. Inspired by HTML; steeper learning curve; designed to separate display from display logic, making unit testing a very possible.
Every year, someone asks if WPF is dead.