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RE: Why I Like Longhorn and XAML

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Why I Like Longhorn and XAML
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 17:24:40 -0500
• In-reply-to: <Pine.NEB.4.58.0311041649270.1669@p...>

mlk@k... (Mike Kozlowski) writes:
>But, see, here's the thing:  The problem Microsoft was solving was
>"What's the best way to allow users to specify the UI in their Windows
>client applications?"  Right now, if you don't use an IDE, you have to
>hand-write C# code (which is un-fun) , but with Longhorn, they
>(sensibly) decided to use an XML-based UI language for declarative UI
>purposes.

Perhaps because they'd already learned that many developers specified
the UI in their applications generally through HTML and its relations,
and want to get that pesky browser they don't utterly control out of the
way.

>Now, given that this is the problem they're trying to solve, and given
>that (as we both agree) none of the existing W3C specs out there solve
>that problem, whyever _wouldn't_ they create their own XML vocabulary?
>And what's at all wrong about them doing so?

I find their choice of problem hysterically ironic, and their reasons
for solving it brutally self-interested.  Dress it up however you like,
it's still them saying "forget cooperation.  It's our way or the
highway, and we aren't supporting those shared things we used to do any
more."

>The alternative to XAML isn't XHTML, it's "#region Windows Form
>Designer generated code".

>From their twisted perspective, perhaps.

>If it's a land grab, it's a grab of the Windows client interface, which
>they've pretty much owned from the start.

No, it's a promotion of the Windows client interface at the expense of
the Web client interface.  If they were still putting any resources
whatsoever into Internet Explorer and supporting shared standards for
interfaces, I might think differently.  As it is, it's a land grab,
consolidating everything they possibly can into their own proprietary
basket.


-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org

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