You say XAML, I say XOML, PoTAYto, PoTAHto, let's call the whole thing off

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With all due respect to George and Ira Gershwin, I have a quick question for the readers of this blog.  In V1, we have an interesting scenario is talked about frequently, and that's the file extension of our xml form of workflow. 

When we debuted at PDC05, there existed an XML representation of the workflow which conformed to a schema that the WF team had built, and it was called XOML.  Realizing that WPF was doing the same thing to serialize objects nicely to XML, we moved to that (XAML), but the file extensions had been cast in stone due to VS project setups.  So, we had XAML contained in a XOML file.

Is this a problem for you?  I could see three possible solutions in the future <insert usual disclaimer, just gathering feedback>:

  • XOML -- we have a legacy now, let's not change it
  • XAML -- it's XAML, so change the file extension to match it (and introduce an overload to the XAML extension, which for now is associated with WPF)
  • something else, say .WFXAML -- this reflects the purpose, is unique to declarative workflows and doesn't have any weird connotations (What does xoml stand for???).

Is this an issue?  Is this something you would like to see changed?  Do any of these solutions sound like a good idea, bad idea, etc?

Thanks, we appreciate your feedback :-)