Jon Udell compares Flex and Avalon. He says:
It's interesting to consider these two admirably compact implementations side-by-side. Some points of comparison:
| MXML |
XAML |
|
| Here today |
2006? 2007? |
| Runs anywhere Flash Player 7 runs |
Runs only on Longhorn |
| Server required |
Server not required |
| Uses ActionScript 2.0 |
Uses .NET languages |
| XPath support: no |
XPath support: yes |
| CSS support: yes |
CSS support: no |
This mixed pattern of green (good) and red (bad) pretty much sums up my conclusion. I want all the green stuff in one column.
Let me comment on our red marks from Jon.
1) Yes, we aren't shipping yet...and that is good - we want to get this right!
2) Yes, Avalon is the presentation system for Windows. XAML is about bringing declarative markup to that Windows API.
3) CSS support:
We originally had a CSS like syntax in Avalon for stylesheets. Based on feedback (external and internal), we changed to what we had today.
Right after the PDC Chris wrote a good description of what we had and why we moved.
Do XAML users out there miss CSS syntax?
I did at first, because I was used to it.
Please read Chris' description.
If you still find our model lacking, please tell us why...
Update: I should mention that we just had some usability testing done on Resources and Styles. We are analyzing the feedback and considering changes to the model.