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Poll: Do you develop or maintain desktop applications?

 
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Hi all, it's poll time!

I'm curious how prevalent is desktop application programming out there now in 2015. I have anecdata that it's still strong in enterprises (think B2B), but no concrete data since nobody goes about publishing it.

Since ranchers come from all over the world and work in a variety of companies, I think this is a pretty good place to get some concrete data. I've put this up in Meaningless Drivel, since I suspect this is everybody's favourite forum and is likely to get most site visitors

Below, I've put up 2 polls. Please vote, and feel free to write your opinions as replies.

 
Karthik Shiraly
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Follow up poll: For those who answered yes, a followup question:

What desktop application framework(s) do you or your company use?
- Both Swing and JavaFX
- Mostly Swing, little JavaFX
- Mostly JavaFX, little Swing
- Only Swing
- Only JavaFX
- We don't use Java for our desktop applications (please tell us what you do use)

Post your answers in your replies.
 
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I don't develop desktop applications, but I didn't want to vote for "Desktop applications... Ugh!".

Almost 10 years ago I've worked on a project where we developed a Java Swing desktop app, which was a huge thing with more than 100 different screens that the customer was using for many different things, from planning work and tracking time to keeping track of documents.

I think JavaFX as it is now is great, and much better than Swing, but it has come far too late. We should have had JavaFX 10 or 15 years ago.
 
Karthik Shiraly
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Jesper de Jong wrote:I don't develop desktop applications, but I didn't want to vote for "Desktop applications... Ugh!".

Almost 10 years ago I've worked on a project where we developed a Java Swing desktop app, which was a huge thing with more than 100 different screens that the customer was using for many different things, from planning work and tracking time to keeping track of documents.

I think JavaFX as it is now is great, and much better than Swing, but it has come far too late. We should have had JavaFX 10 or 15 years ago.


Thanks, Jesper! I have updated the poll with 2 new options if you want to change your vote. Feel free to suggest new options.
 
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In my previous company, I used to develop desktop applications using swing. Now I think they have moved on to JavaFX.
 
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I like desktop based programs. Sometimes when i am bored, I make small utility tools for myself in java
 
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I use Swing to make small applications for myself, and NB Platform to make larger ones.

I'm considering learning JavaFX because it seems the recommended way for new Java desktop applications, but I haven't really done any research.

At the office, I've made a couple of small desktop tools in C# using Windows Forms and Visual Studio.
 
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Karthik Shiraly wrote:
- We don't use Java for our desktop applications (please tell us what you do use)


When I write a desktop app it's usually because I need to access the Windows API such as doing WMI stuff, so I use C#.
I haven't even explored JavaFX yet. It's on my very long TODO list.
 
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No desktop apps for me.
 
Karthik Shiraly
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Thank you all for voting and replying.

For those who can't see the votes, here's the summary as of Nov 26, 2015 02:58:55 ranch time after 48 hours of voting:

Only 13 people voted. So it's a really really small sample here.
Only 6 out of 13 are into desktop apps now in 2015.
2 out of those 6 are into C# Windows desktop apps, not Java.
So only 4 out of 13 are into java apps.
Only 1 out of those 4 is developing java desktop applications for customers.
1 other out of those 4 is developing desktop applications for organization's internal use.
Remaining 2 out of those 4 are into desktop apps purely for personal use.

I think, for me, the surprises were 1) desktop programming seems to be in even worse straits than imagined 2) Most coderanch devs who voted are not writing even small utility/productivity tools as desktop tools.
I'll keep the poll open in the hope that it nets some more data points over time.
 
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I am part of a team developing a standalone desktop Java app for internal users. We have no "customers" of software. I also develop desktop apps for my own use--often just to practice concepts. Finally, I have an opensource app on SourceForge which has gotten over 100 downloads this year. http://sourceforge.net/projects/cyl-viewer/files/stats/timeline?dates=2015-01-01+to+2015-12-30.
 
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Admin Admin wrote:Last vote in cow poll was on December 30, 2016


Where did the rest of 2016 go?
 
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It will reappear in slightly over a year, viz. 2017.
 
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Among other things we are creating an application for scientific calculation and modeling. It is in Fortran, C++ and C#.

It's very interesting from a scientific view, but it's not really up to date when it comes to used software tools. I wonder if it is a good career move.. I should probably do some other stuff to make up for not using the latest software tools. Courses or certifications. The thing is just that I really love exact science, actually even more than programming. (Sorry guys!) So I am studying, but relatively more the scientific stuff that the application is about, geology. I am getting behind with my software knowledge again.
 
Karthik Shiraly
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Jan de Boer wrote:Among other things we are creating an application for scientific calculation and modeling. It is in Fortran, C++ and C#.

It's very interesting from a scientific view, but it's not really up to date when it comes to used software tools. I wonder if it is a good career move.. I should probably do some other stuff to make up for not using the latest software tools. Courses or certifications. The thing is just that I really love exact science, actually even more than programming. (Sorry guys!) So I am studying, but relatively more the scientific stuff that the application is about, geology. I am getting behind with my software knowledge again.



Author of the poll here, Jan!

I had left this poll - by now nearly 2 months old - open precisely to collect as many data points as possible. Thank you for digging it up, voting and giving us additional information! Have a cow for your efforts

TBH, I don't see anything bad about loving science more than programming, because programming is just a tool while science and its methods are permanent.
We programmers may find out a decade or two down the road that the kind of programming we do today has all become obsolete then, thanks to developments like quantum computing. No such risk for scientists!

I also don't see anything bad about forttran, C++ or C# either, especially the first two. I do a bit of engineering related programming now and then.
What I find is it's still the old fortran packages like LAPACK that are ruling the roost.
Even when the front end is python/numpy/scipy which are so popular in those fields, the backend is often some 2-3 decade old fortran package that remains unmatched in accuracy and speed.
All the latest and greatest machine learning and scientific frameworks that are being used today use either fortran or C++ at their core.

In the context of this poll topic, scientific and engineering applications are an area where desktop applications still dominate.
So I think you're on solid ground. In my opinion, if you don't know it already, Python is the skill that is nearest to your current skills and it's in heavy demand.
 
Karthik Shiraly
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For those who are interested in the results but can't see it, here are the numbers:

(I've counted each voter as one vote even if they've cast multiple votes)
 
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I guess the bunch of desktop apps I created with VB for my own use would count.
 
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Last vote in cow poll was on February 14, 2018
 
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