XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language) Discussion List

Gerald Bauer | 4 Apr 20:54

MSXAML (WinFX Markup Language) Is Changing Microsoftie Chris Sells


Hello,

    Michael Butler comments on the Chris Sells blog story about how the "new" declarative 
programming model upcoming in the next version of Windows is changing Chris' thinking 
about code.

   Michael writes:

 Saw a link on Scoble about Chris Sells having his thinking changed by Avalon.  I can't help 
wonder whether it is more declarative programming that is changing his thinking rather 
than just Avalon. Whilst Avalon may be Microsoft's platform for declarative programming, 
my thinking on software development has certainly been changed by MyXaml. Whilst 
Avalon XAML has better data binding support than what we currently enjoy in .NET 1.1 
(especially the binding of one controls properties to another controls properties), I still 
think declarative programming offers developers a better way of programming even on 
plain Windows and .NET. Having the UI declared in XML forces the seperation of UI from 
the rest of the programming logic, which can only be a good thing as most of the time it is 
the UI which changes the most during a product development lifecycle. (Who remembers 
the days when we used to have a Visual Freeze on the development milestone plan!)

I'm very interested to see how Avalon XAML progresses beyond just being used for 
defining user interface components. Lets see what it can do for the Data Access Layer and 
for seperating out business logic too (see the MyXaml workflow classes for a good starting 
point and also my own experiments detailed on this blog for ideas  )

But it is good to see respected members of the development community like Chris Sells 
understanding how powerful the concept of declarative programming can be.  

   Source: http://blogs.wdevs.com/mpbutler/archive/2005/04/02/2941.aspx

(Continue reading)

headers

xaml-talk | 14 Apr 20:49

New poll for xaml-talk


Enter your vote today!  A new poll has been created for the 
xaml-talk group:

What XAML tools & libraries have you used? 

  o MyXAML 
  o MycroXAML 
  o MSXAML (Windows XP Edition) 
  o MSXAML (Windows 2007 Edition) 
  o Xamlon (Flash Edition) 
  o Xamlon (Windows Forms Edition) 
  o Windows Forms Markup Language (WFML) 
  o Other (Please Post Your Comments To The List) 

To vote, please visit the following web page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xaml-talk/surveys?id=1125864 

Note: Please do not reply to this message. Poll votes are 
not collected via email. To vote, you must go to the Yahoo! Groups 
web site listed above.

Thanks!

_________________________________________
United XAML       | http://unitedxaml.org
XAML Forum & News | http://xamlnews.com

headers

Gerald Bauer | 15 Apr 20:02

Css Zen Garden Creator on MSXAML


Hello,

   Allow me to highlight the blog story titled "Avalon/XAML First Look" by CSS Zen Garden 
creator Dave Shea.

   Dave writes:

  The code itself looks like (well-formed) tag soup from 1997. Whereas the web has seen a 
shift from presentational markup (in the form of tables, embedded attributes like bgcolor, 
and the dreaded font tag) to structural markup with a separated presentation layer (CSS), 
XAML is purely a presentational language. I couldn't see evidence of attention toward 
semantics, and all the presentational attributes are embedded right in the markup. 
Januszewski referenced `a CSS-like syntax', but there's nothing CSS-like about it. It's ugly 
presentational HTML all over again. A sample snippet:

   <?xml version="1.0"?>
   <Canvas 
       xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/xaml"
       xmlns:def="Definition"
       Width="500" Height="500" Background="White">
       <Canvas.Resources>
         <LinearGradientBrush def:Name="RedGrad" 
           StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="1,1">
            <LinearGradientBrush.GradientStops>
               <GradientStopCollection>
                  <GradientStop Color="#FFFFFF" 
                   Offset="0" />
                  <GradientStop Color="#FF0000" 
                   Offset="0.5" />

(Continue reading)

headers

Gerald Bauer | 15 Apr 20:24

Comments on MSXAML story by CSS Zen Garden creator

Hello,

allow me to highlight some comments on the "Avalon/XAML First Look" story by CSS Zen
Garden creator Dave Shea.

Joe Marini comments:

1. XAML is not "just a XUL ripoff." XUL is entirely about presentation structure. Yes, XAML
contains presentation information, but it goes WAY beyond that and provides a way of
specifying not just physical appearance but interactive behavior and abstract object
instantiation. It goes a long way toward declarative programming, and provides some very
nifty ways of making sure the two stay separate. In fact, I've built entire examples of
XAML-only functionality that would require a lot of script programming in the past (you
can see them on my site).

2. Microsoft is not "ignoring standards like CSS and SVG." CSS was in fact deeply
investigated, and doesn't have the necessary power or extensibility to accomplish what
you can do in XAML. Neither does SVG, which was built and pushed by its creators
primarily to be an animation engine. That's not XAML's primary mission.

(By the way, I find it highly interesting that Macromedia's Flash format is closed and
propietary and yet nobody complains about that, yet MS went out of its way to make XAML
easily extensible via third parties and gets no kudos for it. And please don't tell me how
Macromedia "opened" SWF - they just documented the bytecode. They still control the
language and its implementation, and you can't extend it like you can XAML).

3. XAML is not MS just making another IE-proprietary language to shut out other
browsers. Many of you may find this hard to believe, but the ratio of intranet applications
to internet apps is somewhere around 10 to 1. For scenarios where you can control the

(Continue reading)

headers

Gerald Bauer | 18 Apr 20:12

Ben Darlow on MSXAML architecture and misunderstandings

Hello,

allow me to highlight Ben Darlow's comments on MSXAML. Ben writes:

The interesting thing that I can deduce from the comments above is that people seem to
think that Avalon/XAML is misunderstood. Okay, so it's not XUL, it's far more than that. It
attempts to integrate presentation and functionality all in one layer. But from all this I get
the distinct impression that the architects of XAML have entirely missed the point behind
separation of data, functionality and presentation that technologies like the modern DOM/
CSS/Javascript or XUL/CSS/Javascript provide.

Not only are these three tangibly separate concepts, but if Microsoft is serious about the
technology being the basis for future application development, then it follows that
different team members would be involved in the three different elements. Having all three
in the same place means that developers need to at least understand all three parts in
order to work with XAML. Comparing this to the XUL model, an individual interface
developer can create the structure of the application by creating a raw XUL document, a
designer can create a stylesheet which gives the interface whatever non-native aesthetic is
necessary, and another developer can create application behaviour through javascript.
There's even the other layer of XPCOM being called by the JS.

Now some of the comments above talk about how we wouldn't need to create XAML
manually, since it could be automatically generated by code or developer tools. This
strikes me as undercutting the entire point behind using an XML-based interface language
in the first place. If the language is so unwieldy as to necessitate such tools, then what
does it say about the language? I'm inclined to believe that using XML is merely paying lip
service to openness and interoperability (as Bill Gates himself recently did); Microsoft still
want people to buy their next iteration of Visual Studio, and you can guarantee that the
"tag soup" of XAML will be far easier to edit and create using the in-house IDE.

(Continue reading)

headers

Gerald Bauer | 25 Apr 19:46

Microsoftie Declares MSXAML an OPEN LANGUAGE that is XML COMPLIANT.


Hello,

   allow me to highlight the comments by Joe Marini (Microsoft) that declares MSXAML as 
an open language.

   Joe writes:

  XAML is an OPEN LANGUAGE. It is XML COMPLIANT. How many times do I have to say it?

  Joe Marini also comments on Netscape XUL/Mozilla XUL. Joe writes:

  I've been in this business for FIFTEEN years. Let me tell you a secret: most of your "open 
standards" today started out as somebody's attempt to create a proprietary technology 
that failed. Mozilla XUL started out as Netscape XUL, which was a PROPRIETARY invention 
intended originally only to run inside the Netscape browser and thus create Navigator 
lock-in. I know this because, see, I actually TALKED with Netscape AT LENGTH about this 
way back when I was on Dreamweaver and they wanted us to provide support for it.

 JavaScript ALSO started out as a PROPRIETARY Netscape invention, and was in fact called 
LiveScript originally until they decided to try and piggy-back off of Java's momentum and 
renamed it JavaScript.

 Both of these technologies only became "open" when the business cases for keeping them 
closed collapsed, not because of any altruism on the part of the developers.

 CSS is nice for web pages, but the fact is that from an architectural viewpoint, it has so 
many structural problems that need addressing. You can't extend it. It's not 
compositional. I could go on and on.

(Continue reading)

headers

Gerald Bauer | 26 Apr 03:35

MyXAML Lead Weighs In on MSXAML Debate

Hello,

Marc Clifton who leads the MyXAML project weighs in on the MSXAML debate and writes
in the MyXAML blog:

Allow me to chime in on something Joe said:

"XAML provides for very clear and distinct separation of data, functionality, and
presentation via explicit parts of the language" and also:"[XAML] goes a long way toward
declarative programming, and provides some very nifty ways of making sure the two stay
separate".

I find this a bit difficult to swallow and that quite the opposite to be true. A XAML
application is an entangled mess of UI state management via property triggers, data
binding, and UI definition. Look at a typical example and you'll see the entanglement of
binding (data), property triggers (functionality), and presentation (object graph). I don't
think this helps the concept of declarative programming. It looks more like an example of
"how not to write applications" if it were written imperatively. But then again, this is pretty
typical. Just pop open the Visual Studio designer and start adding data sets and SQL
connections and you get code that is the antithesis of what Microsoft recommends with
their application blocks. It looks like XAML isn't going to be any different. You CAN do
declarative programming that way, but a serious programmer would cringe.

I think there's a lot of great things that can be done with xml and object graph mapping,
but to entangle property triggers and data binding along with the object graph
representation is not good architecture. And frankly, as I gain experience with MyXaml
applications, I'm also concerned with DIRECT xml element/attribute to class/property
mapping. The resulting xml is too dependent on the underlying class/property definition.
While you can do cool things with it (and it is a tool, after all), there's a lot to be said for

(Continue reading)

headers

Gerald Bauer | 27 Apr 21:10

NXmlUI - Open Source #Develop XML forms distro


Hello,

  Alexey A. Popov has created a distro/project for the XML forms support built into 
SharpDevelop (#Develop) called NXmlUI.

   You can grab the sources and examples online @ http://sourceforge.net/projects/
nxmlui

   - Gerald

PS: In case you wonder what NXmlUI XML forms look like. Here's a sample:

<Components version="1.0">
  <System.Windows.Forms.Form>
    <Name value="AboutForm" />
    <FormBorderStyle value="FixedDialog" />
    <StartPosition value="CenterScreen" />
    <ClientSize value="{Width=304, Height=182}" />
    <MinimizeBox value="False" />
    <DockPadding value="" />
    <Text value="About XPad application" />
    <AcceptButton value="btnOk [System.Windows.Forms.Button], Text: Close" />
    <MaximizeBox value="False" />
    <Controls>
      <System.Windows.Forms.Button>
        <Name value="btnOk" />
        <Location value="{X=112,Y=136}" />
        <Size value="{Width=75, Height=24}" />
        <Text value="Close" />

(Continue reading)

headers

xaml-talk | 29 Apr 04:03

Poll results for xaml-talk


The following xaml-talk poll is now closed.  Here are the 
final results: 

POLL QUESTION: What XAML tools & libraries have you used? 

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- MyXAML, 4 votes, 40.00%  
- MycroXAML, 3 votes, 30.00%  
- MSXAML (Windows XP Edition), 0 votes, 0.00%  
- MSXAML (Windows 2007 Edition), 0 votes, 0.00%  
- Xamlon (Flash Edition), 0 votes, 0.00%  
- Xamlon (Windows Forms Edition), 1 votes, 10.00%  
- Windows Forms Markup Language (WFML), 0 votes, 0.00%  
- Other (Please Post Your Comments To The List), 2 votes, 20.00%  

For more information about this group, please visit 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xaml-talk 

For help with Yahoo! Groups, please visit
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/ 

_________________________________________
United XAML       | http://unitedxaml.org
XAML Forum & News | http://xamlnews.com

1	November 2005
1	October 2005
4	September 2005
1	August 2005
1	July 2005
2	June 2005
8	May 2005
9	April 2005
7	March 2005
10	February 2005
18	January 2005
21	December 2004
33	November 2004
36	October 2004
17	September 2004
16	August 2004
8	July 2004

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun

				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30