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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Why I Like Longhorn and XAML
 It came time to troll the Longhorn roadmap. Here are things that I like about it. I know that pages and pages and pages of blogs and email will be dedicated to the negatives, but here are positives that stand out to me from a cursory inspection. 1. Customization: some customers have standards that require us to heavily customize the look and feel of applications. For MID, we needed a language that easily enabled us to control the flow, say navigation, of content and interaction. It was an IETM language and for those not familiar with it, that means integration of procedural testing and debugging of a tactical asset (say weapon system). So we needed a very customizable application interface and we had to deal with the potentials of non-linear effects given multiple test assets operating simultaneously (non-linerarity is a result of more than one system contending for a resource at the same time). But a very nice feature is that I can choose between the browser or a standalone app just by resetting an attribute and recompiling. It will be fun to work out which is best when and where. I think web browsers are a technical cul de sac, but preserve options. 2. Cheap: That customization has historically required Windows programmers. Who can afford that? 3. Partition tasks: Separation of code and the GUI enables us to let graphics and UI artists design look and feel and use the objects the programmers develop. We can separate documents from applications. Collaborative (say with customers en masse or in pairs ) rapid prototyping becomes a reality again. 4. Better monitors: Vector graphics scale. Bitmaps don't. When your flat panel TV is also your application monitor, you need vectors. The current WinUI must die. 5. Extensible: just try to add your own tags to HTML. See item 1. If an element is the surface of a class, it is a lot easier to learn and apply. Suddenly, XML really makes sense to an object-oriented programmer. One finally has a reason to use a namespace because it tells one what implementation to use as it should. We get a realized version of inheritable architectures and that will make some Hytimers really happy or really increase their frustration because abstract classes don't map to tags and the old Oster dot syntax is back for compound properties. 6. Lifecycle resistant. The old known problem of creating complex interfaces that die every time the underlying rendering objects evolve or devolve. This is coupled to item 2. 7. State: having an application object to maintain state among pages and share code without requiring a server to talk to (a sensible session object). Starting up and shutting down an application is easier and more coherent. I can say exactly which page starts the food chain. See item 10. 8. Compiled over interpreted code. We did the interpreted style in the US Navy MID. It is a non-starter. Just too frikkin' slow. With Longhorn, if I want to do it all in procedural code, I can. Policy choice. 9. Improved debug environment. Thank God! 10. Horses for Courses: it knows the difference between a document and an application. It knows if an application needs navigation or doesn't and won't insist on it when it doesn't. XML isn't SGML On The Web. It's just easier SGML. Navigation isn't reliant on URIs. I can navigate to an object, rather than a URI. This should excite the IETM vets who worked with test procedure logic and the lost-in-hyperspace problem. You can build a smart hub and that is a very neat thing to have (think problems of degraded systems that create multiple possible state universes - adaptive topology. Pre/post processing is now a slam dunk). Journaling that restores page state is provided. 11. Neat and very familiar animation operations. Let the games begin. Data binding to ANY UI element. Very cool And on and on. I've run out of time to read the roadmap, but this is very cool stuff. Yes, the standardsGurus are going to be very unhappy and so they should be. The standardGurus were unhappy with HTML and the emergence of the W3C. They are going to be unhappy if those horses are tired or retired. I don't think that will happen, but being nervous about changes in our cages is how we know we are developers. This should be fun, and for many business reasons, I can envision advantages, but it is still three years in the future and that is a long time in any business these days. Still, I'm awfully glad to see Microsoft stick their necks out this far. Guts and moxie are thrilling even if risky. Too many vested companies won't take risks and MS seems to thrive on them. len 
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