WPF/E

A very interesting forward from a colleague.

As MS Developer Mike Harsh notes on his blog, Microsoft has announced its proposed release dates for the WPF/E project. WPF/E, which stands for Windows Presentation Foundation "Everywhere", aims to bring the rich application environment available with Microsoft's .NET platform to other, non-Windows platforms and mobile devices.

There's been talk among the hardcore .NET programmers that WPF/E could give Flash a serious run for its money as the dominant cross-platform rich media application technology. Of course, WPF/E is still a very young technology, but the trends are promising.

WPF/E uses the extensible markup language XAML to create and control user interfaces. XAML (pronounced "Zammel") is similar in structure to the other XML-based UI languages currently in use. Mozilla uses XUL and Macromedia apps (Flash, ColdFusion, Flex) use MXML. WPF/E uses _JScript to handle user interactions, much like how Flash uses ActionScript. So, think of what you can do using Flash in the browser and you get a pretty good idea of the potential of a technology like WPF/E.

Now if only we could do something about that clumsy name... The old name for WPF was "Avalon", so how about something like "Avalone"? Rhymes with abalone? Anyone?