Re: Comments on MSXAML story by CSS Zen Garden creator

Gerald Bauer wrote:
> Joe Marini comments:
> 
> 1. XAML is not “just a XUL ripoff.” XUL is entirely about presentation 
> structure.

     No, it's an abstract UI language. Though it's not entirely divorced 
from the presentation, most of the actual presentation is defined in 
CSS. XUL also has templates, data sources (RDF) and other UI-related 
features that are NOT presentational in nature.

> 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.

    (Please note that questions asked below are not necessarily rhetorical.)

    This leads me to the following questions:

1) If Microsoft is going to use custom presentational attributes for 
specific elements anyways, why not combine that with CSS support? XUL 
has both custom presentational attributes and attributes that overlap 
CSS, while CSS supports presentation that isn't possible with XUL alone. 
(I get the distinct feeling this is because the styling in XAML is not 
entirely presentational. I think MS wants a general styling model that 
includes behavior, et cetera.)

2) Is there a reason Microsoft can't just extend XSL for style sheets?

3) How do you separate the programmer from the graphics designer? It 
seems to me that in the Microsoft model the graphics designer is 
doubling as the UI developer, while the programmer is forced to write to 
whatever interface the graphics designer wishes to provide. The only way 
for the programmer to add buttons or change the interface at a high 
level is to temporarily assume the authority of the graphics designer. 
What does MS provide that allows one person to develop the high level 
markup and code (example: JS+HTML), while another develops the 
presentational aspects of the UI (CSS+XBL)?

    On a side note, I've seen many comments to the effect of "the 
weakness of CSS properties is that you never know which one applies to 
an element". Why would you want a presentational styling system that 
requires you to memorize a tree of properties that expands with every 
element you add to the markup language, rather than a flat list of 
properties? Heck, the property name for the same presentational effect 
could differ between two elements. Do XAML developers even have a flat 
list of basic presentational properties they have to support for each 
element? Does XAML even allow the styling of an unknown element???

 > Neither does SVG,
> which was built and pushed by its creators primarily to be an animation 
> engine. That’s not XAML’s primary mission.

     This doesn't really explain why they can't design XAML to use SVG
for vector graphics. What's the problem with using compound documents 
(XAML+SVG)?

> 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.

     Companies would never use mixed systems? Mac, Windows and Linux
can't exist inside the same company? Intranets can't ever be accessed
from an employee's home machine? Intranets don't use internal apps based
on web technologies?

 > For scenarios where you can control the runtime environment, web
> delivery of Avalon apps makes a lot of sense.

     Only if Avalon can be easily and consistently deployed on ALL the
systems using the apps in question.

     One thing that bugs me about XAML is how it encourages mixing
styling with content. For instance, watch the following streaming video:

http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0504/24295/avalon_interview_and_demo_MBR.asx

    This video makes it clear that Microsoft has no concept of
alternative or user-defined stylesheets. It's very similar to their 
attitudes toward skins. They think programmers should determine the 
presentation of the interface rather than users. They actually joke 
about having an "Export to XAML" option in MS Paint. Once again, 
Microsoft shows that they'd rather empower the developer than the user.


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