Declaratively Tagged UI
Don posted, building and explaining in much more detail on some of the thoughts that I've been having, that seem to be extremely similar to SVG and LongHorn. This is all really cool and great new stuff to look forward to if you ask me, however, I want to make these opinions of mine extremely clear as I think they are very, very important points.
Will the underlying architecture and all things related change drastically?
More than likely and for the better!
Will everything change the developer's standpoint?
I hope to god not and I hope (and I'm sure) they (Microsoft) are making it so from the end developer's standpoint there's not much of a different from how we "design forms" today.
Let me explain what I mean. From what Don talked about, it sounds like designing forms, will end up more like it is in ASP.NET where you have a design view and an html view and you can tweak the UI from the html view to your hearts content. Today, design forms in WindowsForms is much, much easier as there's no "html view" for your form and i personally consider that to be a great thing and is what makes WindowsForms so much easier to create!
Now, I'm totally down with what Don is talking about. It's like HTML on Steroids as a flavor of XML...but without the HTML (which is a good thing). However, being able to actually mess with that stuff yourself opens up so many possiblities for problems (as it does with HTML currently) and IMHO shouldn't even be part of the VS.NET development process. Why would it need to be? In this "perfect for UI" flavor of XML, there should be absolutely no need to mess with it by hand. The designer should do everything for you (and of course allow you to open up the XML representation in a more "hidden" way for emergencies). Most people mind find that this comment ridiculous, but that's because you're probably used to HTML and would die if you didn't have the ability to edit it yourself. Just remember, this won't really be anything like HTML. It won't have all the problems and workaround crap that HTML has, which is always the reason why you have to edit it yourself.
So hands down, I believe that declarative UI is totally cool and absolutely fantastic with all of its possibilities, but I also believe it should be something that isn't IN YOUR FACE. It should be done by the WindowsForms designers.
Thoughts? Comments?