RE: [xml-dev] About XUL, XAML and Laszlo

["Chris Wilper" <cwilper@cs.cornell.edu>]

> It appears that XUL is not closely related to XAML, in fact,

> both systems are far from being close.

 

In design, they're different.  And XAML has a wider scope.

 

But they're similar in that they each endeavor to allow the development

of rich, portable client interfaces in a web-like way.  Now, we can

argue about the meaning of portable when used in conjunction with

the term "Microsoft", but I think the more interesting thing to

think about is what the ultimate manifestation of these ideas

might become.

 

[X]HTML + [CSS] + [Javascript] rule the portable web app interface

game today, as evidenced by, well, just about anybody's homepage. 

But we're still not happy with it.  Why?  One big reason for me:

Rich interfaces are possible, but anything sufficiently advanced

requires massive amounts of DHTML-fu.  I've been there.  Three

weeks and a dozen hacks later, I've still got an application to write.

 

As uncomfortable as the web.traditionalist in me feels about it

(which is less and less each day), I think the road to richer,

widely supported web app interfaces will be a significant jump

away from [X]HTML.

 

That Microsoft essentially owns the web client[1] gives them

ample time to design and implement such a monster, and the

ability to deploy it with ease.  While not as ambitious in some

ways as XAML, XUL, if evolved right, could get some *really*

significant traction in this realm by the time Longhorn arrives...

especially if the recent trend in Firebird's popularity[2] continues.

Stalling IE development may turn out to have been a huge

strategic mistake for Microsoft.

 

Overall, I regard the fear-of-XAML that has popped up recently as

a good thing. What better way to get more interest in making

XUL kick more ass than it already does?

 

- Chris

 

[1] ... but not the command-line: http://www.google.com/

[2] http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/why/

 

 -----Original Message-----
From: Didier PH Martin [mailto:martind@netfolder.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 1:02 PM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: [xml-dev] About XUL, XAML and Laszlo

Hi,

 

After more examination of XUL, XAML and more recently of Laszlo It appears that XUL is not closely related to XAML, in fact, both systems are far from being close. I would say though that XAML is closer to Laszlo than to XUL.

 

These two systems even if close in terms of visual capabilities are different in terms of code packaging:

-          XAML requires a .net environment to be installed on the client but do not necessarily requires anything on the server side.

-          Laszlo requires an interpreter on the server side and the flash plug-in to be installed on the client. Millions of clients already have a flash interpreter installed on the client.

 

It seems that compared to W3C DOM model + HTML, Laszlo has the advantage to run the code in both Netscape/Mozilla and Internet Explorer environments without any modifications. This is not the case with “standard based” document designed in accordance with W3C specs.

 

A similar environment to Laszlo could also be developed in SVG using, for instance an SVG plug-in but there are no higher level declarative languages available. SVG itself is too low level to be an economical declarative language. I have not seen yet any environments resembling Laszlo in terms of functionalities on top of SVG. Does anyone know about any environment offering a declarative language on top of SVG?

 

Cheers

Didier PH Martin

http://didier-martin.com