XAML and Avalon on Windows XP and 2003

I can’t decide whether this is a nail in the coffin or cause for celebration. The official announcement (via Michael Juřek’s Bonzblog) mentions bringing the Avalon rendering engine to Windows XP and 2003. That cheered me up on one hand and left me a little glum on the other.

The good news is that we’ll finally be able to build rich internet applications in the foreseeable future on existing software, or rather on updated versions of it. The downside is that it’s a proprietary Microsoft solution, so there are no standards and therefore no portability.

Related articles

• (Michael Juřek’s Bonzblog, August 30, 2004) Key Announcement on Longhorn and WinFX
• (Dagblog, August 15, 2004) Who Will Help Web Forms?
• (Dagblog, April 1, 2004) It’s Time for Flex 1.0
• (Dagblog, January 2, 2004) Web Browsers and the Future
• (Dagblog, January 22, 2004) Is the Flex Beta Program Opening to the Public?
• (Dagblog, December 19, 2003) Flex and the Web Application Framework
• (Dagblog, December 8, 2003) Web Applications Evolve with RIA (Rich Internet Applications)
• (Dagblog, December 1, 2003) XAML — Microsoft’s XUL
• (Dagblog, October 23, 2003) The Return of Smart Clients and the Twilight of “HTML Applications”?