In my previous post, I expressed my frustrations with the lack of functionality and stability of the current Flickr photo management offerings. Fast forward to today and all has changed, thanks to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (.NET 3.0), thirteen23 (hmmm, their branding seems very familiar for some reason... :) ), and their Flickr photo management application: Nostalgia
This application is not only gorgeous (with beautifully animated effects and transitions), but VERY functional! The fact that the application is still only a case study makes it all the more impressive!
I am a very design-oriented developer. I have that seemingly uncommon "developer" brain made up of both logical and design-oriented parts.
When I first heard what Microsoft had in store for WPF, I was ecstatic. Finally, developers could give their apps a beautiful user interface that would easily scale to different resolutions (thanks to vector-based graphics), allow skinning functionality, rich web-based interfaces (WPF/E), and a much more. For those developers who don't like dealing with user interface, WPF also makes it easy to separate the responsibility of design from functionality, allowing a designer to create beautiful front-ends while the developer focuses on the functionality.
It's apps like Nostalgia that demonstrate the power of WPF and the .NET 3.0 framework, and it's only just begun.
Welcome to the future of Windows applications. Eat your heart out Mac! ;)