Hello,

My trial period has expired but I am glad to see that I can still post a question.  I have read here before that plans for version 2 should be around mid year and that you have plans to support Silverlight and WPF.

I am also evaluating DevForce and have been very impressed with their support for SL & WPF.  As a matter of fact, Winforms and Webforms seem to have been pushed back and most everything in their product is now pointing in this new direction.

Now to my questions.

1.  I was wondering if someone could expand on exactly what your plans are around SL & WPF?  I am not pushing the schedule issue because I know how that works and besides, by the time I can be up to speed on your product, June should be here!  I am interested in how you plan to tie them into your products and how this will affect the way StrataFrame is used.

2.  I also have been wondering about the role of Enterprise Server.  It seems to me (with my limited knowledge) that using ES with Silverlight would be the way to go.  Would this be considered a Best Practise?

Overall I am very impressed with Strataframe and it seems to fit my programming style very well.  I love the Database deployment utility and can't imagine deploying an app without the benefit of the security roles module.  I just am concerned about making the right choice as relates to the newer technology.

Thanks,
Bill Mason

Great insight, and great thoughts.  Here is the underlying issue...there just isn't a "Silver Bullet" to kill them all at once.  Things are getting closer though.  With XAML and WPF, there is more commonality now than every before...assuming Silverlight lives

In truth, people have been extremely slow to adopt Silverlight, and most controls developers are interested in moving product...who isn't right?  But this is why the next version of SF will be so important as it will pave a way for long-term development that will be sticking around....and WPF will be that for sure on the desktop side.  Honestly, I think that Silverlight may get a second wind, but only time will tell.

Microsoft has been pushing extremely hard the last 2-3 years to tools developers like us and the rest of the world to get off the WinForms bus and jump 100% onto the WPF and Silverlight bus.  Though I know WPF is a great product and we look forward to moving that way, the issue is that there are so many developers that still have new and legacy products on WinForms that will have a long lifespan.  The rest of the world doesn't move as fast as Microsoft and that is part of the problem with some of the technologies that they release.

In our world, we are actually looking to...wait for it...iPhone and iPad development for the mobile side of things.  It is Objective C, but in truth, a very stable and clearly a popular platform.  As much as I would like to see it, I just don't think most people want to move to Windows 7 phones.  So we want to develop for a platform that people have already adopted and are willing to use without a fight.

There are a lot of things to evaluate, and that is why we try and do our research before wasting your time as well as ours.  We have never been much of a ,"Be on the Microsoft bandwagon to be cool" company.  We want to produce realistic tools and products that meet the masses and help bring their products forward.  So that said, it should be interesting to see how 2011 ends up in a few areas!

Hi Trent - 

Hi Trent,

I agree WPF should be the way to go with SF, this will allow us to move forward the win form world.  Entity Framework has become very popular and from what I hear, very stable.

On a second note, just to re-assure,  all new SF source will be done on C#?  if so, should we (the VB guys) start moving to C#?

Edhy Rijo