[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] MyXAML Lead Weighs in on "What is XAML?" Debate
Hello, Allow me to highlight Marc Clifton's (of MyXAML fame) blog story titled "What Is XAML?" that highlights some more "XAML is" definitions. Marc comments: What's interesting about these definitions is: * There appears to be confusion regarding whether XAML can be applied to any object or is intended to work with UI classes; * While everyone appears to agree that it is a "language", no one recognizes that the markup is also dependent upon a parser which introduces syntax specialization (Drew Marsh eludes to this point though when he mentions complex properties). That is to say, the parser plays a significant role in the definition of the language and XAML as a "language" loses some of its generic features because Microsoft's "parser" implements specialized syntactical constructs, of which I have already written about.; * While I'm on the subject of "language", let's also remember that the element tags and property names in XAML are mapped to classes in the associated namespace. Therefore, XAML is an open-ended language as it applies (with notable exception) to any .NET class, past, present, and future. That is, unless the parser is written to work with only specific namespaces and classes; * What the generic definition fails to recognize is that not all classes are created equally. I've written about it before and I'll remind everyone again, many third party vendors do not make their classes particularly declarative (i.e. XAML) friendly. Some of the definitions above give you the cozy feeling that XAML will work with any .NET class. This is not true; So, that said, and having said in the past that MyXaml isn't XAML, now I'm sure you're wondering how I would define MyXaml. Here's the definition: MyXaml is a general purpose XML parser that maps elements to class instantiation, attributes to property/event assignments, and sub-elements to collections and concrete instance assignment, allowing the programmer to declaratively instantiate an object graph utilizing compliant .NET classes with minimal parser-specific syntactical requirements, accomplished using the runtime reflection and type converter features of C# and .NET. Note that: * I do not say MyXaml is a language but rather a parser * I indicate it works only with compliant classes * I indicate that the parser itself introduces only minimal syntactical specialization More @ http://myxaml.com/marcclifton/archive/2004/11/05/524.aspx - Gerald ----------------------- Gerald Bauer Rich Client Conference (RichCon) 2005 - http://richcon.com XUL News Wire - http://xulnews.com XUL Alliance - http://xulalliance.org ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
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