Notes from the WPF SDR

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I attended the Visual Basic SDR for WPF on Tuesday. Interesting to see what our MVP customers are saying. The best line came from a prominent VB author: "If I ever have to see XAML, you have failed."

General agreement there. XAML, after all, is just a serialization format. And we know from our basic XML classes that you never want to do work in the serialization stream, right? Best to stay with the info set / object model. Fortunately, Mark Boulter was there to field the many questions from our MVPs, and he agreed that if he never has to see another line of XAML in his life, it will be too soon.

So, Cider to the rescue.

Rob Relyea gave us a "platform recap," summarizing the world of MSFT technologies from Win32 to the present:

  • Win32
  • VB1.0
  • --------
  • HTML
  • ASP
  • DHTML
  • --------
  • VB/Winforms - ASP.NET
  • VB/WPF replacing User32/GDI ("lasted 20 years, but the underpinnings are crumbling")

WPF is to last "for the next 20 years." Which, if true, means that we dev-types will be in a very good position if we learn this stuff early.

The same wry commentator who's less than thrilled with XAML called these technology transitions (------) "mind-numbing barriers to adoption," drawing laughter. 

(on KEXP: "Run" by Spiritualized.)