RE: Microsoft XAML "Spec Owner" Rob Relyea on Avalon XAML vs HTML+CSS

>  What's your take on it? Is Avalon XAML better than
the plain old HTML+CSS alternative?

Isn't that sort of mixing apples and oranges?  Avalon XAML isn't just for
web UI's.  (Actually, does it even work for web UI's?  I haven't seen
anything to suggest that it does.  Maybe I'm missing something here).

On non-web UI's, we've needed styles for a long time.  But I'm not too happy
with the Avalon-XAML implementation.  To handle the style definition, you
need a sub-parser, because, after all, markup like this:

<TextPanel>
    <TextPanel.Resources>
        <Style>
             <Button Foreground="green" />
        </Style>
    </TextPanel.Resources>
    <Button>This text will be green also</Button>
</TextPanel>

Changes the meaning of the <Button...> element from "instantiate a button"
to "set the style for the typeof(Button)".  That's stupid, IMHO.  With
MyXaml, you write:

<Style def:Name='XP'>
  <StyleProperties>
    <PropertyStyle FlatStyle='System'/>
  </StyleProperties>
</Style>

Which I'm considering modifying to the following:

<Style def:Name='XP'>
  <StyleProperties>
    <PropertyStyle Class="Button" FlatStyle='System'/>
  </StyleProperties>
</Style>

This is consistent with the "a tag maps to a class" and doesn't confuse the
reader (yet again) as to the meaning of the element.

But, back to the question.  The comparison doesn't seem appropriate to me,
until I see a browser parsing XAML, *without* needing a 20MB .NET framework
behind it for the client side controls that runs only on one OS.

And I really don't see the benefit of a dumbed down client experience
because I want both web and non-web apps to look the same from the same
markup file.  Nor do I want a dumbed down web experience because I want to
use server side XAML.  ASP.NET only goes so far.  In my dabbling with
ASP.NET, doing anything useful requires client side controls and Javascript.

So, what's the worry?

Marc



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