The Windows Forms Data Grid Conspiracy Theory March 11, 2007
Posted by James Webster in : development, windows , trackbackAlthough my most recent development experience has been with Java, I have also done some .NET work in the past building Windows Forms applications. I’m keen to go back to that in the future as I find there is an immediate and tactile quality to building a GUI application that you don’t get from building a web application, AJAXified or not. I’ve been keeping a close watch on the new Windows GUI technologies, WPF, WPF/E, XBAP, etc. I was interested to see that Xceed have released a free (as in beer) WPF Data Grid component. Infragistics have also released a preview of their WPF-enabled NetAdvantage suite, which includes a grid. That’s pretty handy as it appears that Microsoft have yet to provide a WPF-specifc DataGrid. Which reminded me of my Windows Forms Data Grid Conspiracy Theory…
Pretty much all of the .NET Windows Forms applications that I have built involved a grid at some point. I have another theory that for a large majority of financial applications what the users would really be happy with, from a user interface perspective, is Excel! ‘Databases are rocks, spreadsheets are water’. The DataGrid provided with Windows Forms has a pretty minimal feature set and is limited primarily to binding with ADO.NET DataSets. Some minor improvements were made in .NET 2.0 but in my experience most projects end up selecting a component from a vendor such as Syncfusion, Xceed and Infragistics that provides extensive features above and beyond those provided by the built-in DataGrid.
Now for the conspiracy theory… I believe that once a year, each of the companies building DataGrid components dispatch a representative to Redmond. They all meet in some dark corner of the Microsoft campus. Behind locked doors and bathed in the light of flickering candles they start working on ‘The List’. The List is the definitive list of features that any developer could ever possibly want from a custom DataGrid. Once The List has been completed and agreed upon, The Assignment begins. The List is fed into a custom algorithm which balances each feature against a number of factors; difficulty to implement, how obviously necessary it is, how fancy or obscure it is. And after much computation each representative is provided with ‘The Sublist’, the list of features that they will implement which has a minimum of overlap with any other DataGrid vendor.
At least, this is MY theory because I struggled to find a custom DataGrid that would support all of the features I needed!
Comments»
James,
Thank you for your Kiva loan to the business person in Samoa. I am on the Board of South Pacific Business Development (SPBD), the Samoan based microfinance institution which will administer your loan. www.spbd.ws
My wife and I just returned from our 1st trip to Samoa where we spent 2 days meeting with all the members of the staff and clients. There are 16 full time employees who are energetic and dedicated to helping our clients help themselves and their families. We also attended 3 village meetings where we met with the entrepreneurs and saw some of their businesses. It is amazing to see the impact these businesses are having on their life.
Thanks again for your loan.
Jim
[…] Young, trustee of microfinance organisation South Pacific Business Development, added the following comment: Thank you for your Kiva loan to the business person in Samoa. I am on the Board of South Pacific […]