Title: Message
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An
article related to XAML from the recent PDC 2003
In it,
the author writes:
But that's really
just the tip of the iceberg. Here's the central question my friends: Do you want
your applications to behave like websites? As an application developer (which is
what PDC targets) it certainly is cool to be able to easily create my own super
customized looking application. But is this something end users are going to
want? Do they want every application to be as different from one another as
every Web site currently is? There is something to be said about the rigidity of
the Windows UI. Even the poorest written programs have UIs that most people can
follow because it's hard to deviate too much from the norm.
But XAML
opens the door to having apps with user interfaces as bad as...well the typical
Web site. Most of the sites I visit have atrocious user interfaces.
Ralph
Can you write VB? then you are almost there :^)
My first GUI program when I was much younger was a VB6
program. Haven't touched it since then so I'd imagine it would take a fair
effort to get up to scratch...
Meanwhile I am sitting here making a template for a CMS-driven site browser-detect so it can spit out nice, compliant, accessible pages for most folks and a text version for the rest (client said "give up on N4" <g>), Next they want high/low bandwidth versions, methinks the zengarden style is the way to go :-)
Ok
if all your images are defined in the stylesheet (rarely the case)... another
alternative i've tried is to make a low-res version of all your images, then
buffer the entire page into a variable and do a replace on all ".jpg" with
"_low.jpg" and gifs etc... (filter in jsp, ob_start with php or cfsavecontent
with coldfusion)... somebody probably has a better way though.
Back to
XAML: I guess from an ubiquitous computing point view the blurring between
application, web application and web page is inevitable. The application
server industry is building up steam and I'm sure they will be pushing a
similar technology, and my bet is it'll be XAML rather than XUL (i wish it was
the other way around!).
These technologies conjure up dreams where you
don't have to launch all these separate 'applications' to do what you have to
do... the computer interface moulds itself to allow you to do the tasks you
wish to do, whether it be read an email, look up some information (on the web
or otherwise), converse on a newsgroup, instant message a friend, post on a
private/public diary...
I wish MS would agree on (instead of
declaring) a common base architecture with the rest of the world... Longhorn
would not doubt be the most advanced application using that architecture,
which would still give them the market lead they lust for.
MS write
some great and useful stuff for the business world. If only they would let the
rest of the world join the game...
- tim
p.s. Looks like we have
two definitions of XAML (i was waiting for an ML acronym clash!):
http://longhornblogs.com/rdawson/posts/496.aspx
and
http://itmanagement.webopedia.com/TERM/T/Transaction_Authority_Markup_Language.html
Kym
Kovan spoke the following wise words on 25/10/2003 1:48 PM EST:
Why do I have this little elf in my left ear whispering "learn dot net"... i wish he'd go away....
Can you write VB? then you are almost there :^)
Right now we have a client with a bunch of php sites he wants us to host, <blatant plug> as we do such a good job with his CF sites</blatant plug>, I am starting to wonder which way it is all going.....
Meanwhile I am sitting here making a template for a CMS-driven site browser-detect so it can spit out nice, compliant, accessible pages for most folks and a text version for the rest (client said "give up on N4" <g>), Next they want high/low bandwidth versions, methinks the zengarden style is the way to go :-)
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