Page / Window Constructor

According to Rockford Lhotka:

"Putting code in a Page/Window constructor is bad. Yes, I know it is the “C# way”, but it is bad. The “VB way” of putting code in the Loaded event handler is better.

Why?

Because any exceptions thrown in the constructor prevent the page/window from loading at all, and you have to catch those exceptions in the code that is creating the page/window. In many navigation scenarios you can’t catch them, so the user gets an ugly WPF exception dialog.

However, if you do all your init work in the Loaded event handler, the page/window instance already exists. Navigation has already happened, so the “calling code” is no longer responsible for your page/window going haywire. Instead, you can actually handle the exception and show a nice dialog, explaining to the user what happened, and you can (if desired) navigate somewhere else or whatever."