WPF binding to a collection of ViewModels fails to display as expected

Question

My colleague and I have been desperately trying to understand why we can\'t get a collection of ViewModels to render as expected. We have created a very simple example that

Answer 1

A commonly made mistake in the implementation of a UserControl is to explicitly set its DataContext property to an instance of the expected view model, as you do by

<UserControl.DataContext>
    <local:StupidPersonViewModel />
</UserControl.DataContext>

Doing so effectively prevents that the UserControl inherits a DataContext from its parent control, as is expected in

<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
        <local:StupidPersonView />
    </DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>

where the inherited DataContext is an element of the ItemsSource collection.

Inheritance here means Dependency Property Value Inheritance.

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So just don't explicitly set a UserControl's DataContext. Never. Any blogs or online tutorials telling you so are plain wrong.