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Comment by Raed667 | Hacker News Reader

VisualStudio with a basic Windows Forms application in C# should be one of the simplest ways.

The default look is not that bad for a business oriented application, and the drag-and-drop features are really simple to learn.

Java Swing with Netbeans graphical editor would be my second choice if you like Java better than C#.

EDIT: From personal experience, I found that styling the application beyond the default look, was simpler in Java Swing, using look-and-feel packages. For Windows Forms (maybe because my lack of experience) I had to do most elements as images in order to get the style I wanted.

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WPF is superior to Windows Forms in many ways, particularly layout responsiveness. I would not recommend anyone entering the Windows Desktop scene to use this old paradigm of UI design springing from Win32 (or older). Moreover, since WPF uses XAML, learning it (as opposed to Windows Forms) better prepares one for other popular UI frameworks these days, including for Web and Mobile. Also, if only newer OS versions are of concern, consider using Universal Apps (UWP) instead of WPF. They are both very similar, but UWP is newer.

There is a much steeper learning curve for WPF, if all you are doing is a simple front end to a command line WinForms is a very easy way to get started.

Is this a scientifically supported assessment? I say this because I have heard it often, but in thinking about it, I cannot see this necessarily being true. WPF uses XAML, which is similar to HTML or other markup languages in structure. Sure, this is much different than the paradigm where you specify coordinates for all window elements (Win32, WinForms, et al.), but is it proven than a person having no background knowledge or experience in software would find markup-based layout more difficult than coordinate-based layout? Even if so, is the difference big enough to warrant telling all newcomers to use a coordinate-based layout, despite its inherent lack of responsiveness? Yes, XAML has many additional features, particularly in terms of effects, but these need not be used.

Wasn't WPF discontinued?

So they say, but that doesn't mean its support is about to end. If you look at how long MS supports technologies, you can be pretty sure it has plenty of usable life. Plus, UWP is practically the exact same thing from a design and coding perspective, so the knowledge is by no means lost.

Avoid Windows Forms for new applications. WPF is the current modern way to make Windows applications.

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