Good little project to do when learning C# WPF

Question

I want to write a little application for myself to learn C# and WPF.

The typical hello world in 2009 (twitter client) seems boring. I would like to hear your stands should I do a twitter client? Any other starters I could play around with and get used to c#? (I'm a longtime PHP programmer)

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 25 '09 at 23:25

A Twitter client ends up being a good way to get started with WPF, for a few reasons:

It's got lists of data with images, which gives you practice with formatting and styling lists
There are a lot of options for styling what you're working on - partly due to the avatars, limited text blocks, etc.
A Twitter app is the kind of application where you expect to see good UI
There are some good libraries availble (I highly reccommed tweet#) so you don't need to bother with any of the plumbing
It's something you can show off and be proud of - people will understand what it does
There are plenty of complex things you can add on later if you want - skinning, drag and drop, autocomplete, spell checking, etc.
There are some open source WPF clients out there, so you can find some sample code if you get stuck

And the number 1 reason why it's good idea... you can start contributing your code to the Witty project. We'd love more help!

+1. Great answer. Totally beat me to it! Contribute to Witty. — Ben Griswold, Jul 26 '09 at 03:22

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 25 '09 at 22:58

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I recommend to write a native GUI (WPF) client for your most recent PHP project.

answered Jul 25 '09 at 22:58

Martin v. Löwis

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 25 '09 at 22:55

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You can try writing a modelling tool (business processes flow/UML (classes)/execution flow i.e. scripts execution flow/etc...).

answered Jul 25 '09 at 22:55

Jarek

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 25 '09 at 22:56

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WPF Virtual Labs are a good place to start.

answered Jul 25 '09 at 22:56

JP Alioto

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score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 25 '09 at 23:14

Only do a twitter client if that's what you're interested in. I don't see why twitter should be the new "hello world.", except maybe for making such a thing, like a twitter or facebook bot.

If you want to focus on C# and OOP, try something with many objects interacting, like a simple fighting game, poker, black-jack, etc.

If you want to learn wpf, try some fancy interface stuff, like a calculator, a video player, a photo gallery.

You're only limited to your imagination. Try to pick something fun, or something you'd like your computer to do, and code away. :D

Good little project to do when learning C# WPF

5 Answers5