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I have two very large WinForm applications built on the now dead Composite Application Block ("CAB") from Microsoft Patterns & Practices. I was an earlier adopter and jumped in first to embrace and use CAB. Well, now that it's truly dead I'm starting to think more and more about the future and what framework I can migrate to.

What I like about CAB: * Structure, structure, structure - I lose focus easily and tend to suffer from "analysis paralysis". CAB introduces a "way to do things" and that keeps me on track and developing the application instead of worrying "how to wire up events, or what the best IoC is, etc. * Actually... I think that's about all that I really like about CAB ;0)

I have seen articles about "build your own CAB" but I'm not interested in that. I'd really like to jump ship to a similar framework that is solid and actively supported. My web searches have not turned up anything that seems to serve the same needs as the CAB did. Maybe it's that everyone DOES build their own and that's why there isn't another framework out there.

If you have some guidance or advice I'd really like to hear it.

ioWint
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scubasteve
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2 Answers2

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You can check out the

OR the

I am not sure about specific features / patterns that are targeted by especially the SCSF v/s the CAB but i have been using WCSF for a while now and it definitely provides the structure that you like about CAB.

I believe these two do constitute the prescribed guidance from P&P and are definitely being updated.

Jagmag
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  • Thanks for the info. I was unaware that P&P had recently released an update to SCSF. I'm still reading but it seems like the main reason for the release was to support VS 2010 - I don't see many other improvements. I'm only doing desktop applications so the WCSF isn't applicable. I'll keep reading and also learn about Unity, Prism and "CompositeWPF" as all of these technologies seem to somehow be related to SCSF and or CAB. – scubasteve Oct 19 '10 at 04:44
  • @SteveK - from what I know, SCSF includes CAB part - they simply ported same code base from 2005 version (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540684.aspx). Besides that, SCSF also has CAB extensions for WPF (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540739.aspx). – VinayC Oct 19 '10 at 05:28
  • I've started to look at PRISM (http://compositewpf.codeplex.com/) and Unity and I think they may hold some hope. I will reply in more detail after I get some time experimenting. Thanks for the suggestions so far. – scubasteve Oct 26 '10 at 04:02
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I would suggest you porting your app into WPF - PRISM. I wish they had a PRISM way for Winforms too, but sadly they dont. We had two of our last enterprise level applications migrated using SCSF, now we have switched over to PRISM for the obvious reason. It does include initial learning curve, i knew wat WPF was and had my Helloworld app done with few extras. but now since we had to switch to PRISM WPF, i am having the steep learning on both! Good luck!

ioWint
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