Miguel de Icaza on Mono, Ximian/Novell, XAML

moquist writes "Netcraft has an interview with Miguel de Icaza, of Gnome and Ximian fame. Icaza expounds his thoughts on Mono (the .Net framework for open source), the current direction of Microsoft's .Net, Novell's acquisition of Ximian, Novell's Linux desktop environment, Linux for grandmas and kids, and "the greatest danger to the continuing adoption and progress of open source" (Hint: it's pronounced "XAML".)."

Comments

For those who don't speak Spanish.

[jsweval]

Mono means monkey.

Re:it's pronounced "XAML".

[omicronish]

How the hell do you pronounce "XAML"?

It's pronounced like "Zammel".

Re:Zamil?

[frenetic3]

It's pronounced "Zammel":

"One of Longhorn's most interesting technologies for developers is its new XML-based markup language, codenamed XAML (short for eXtensible Application Markup Language, and pronounced "Zammel"). User interfaces in Longhorn applications are typically built using XAML. In this article, we look at how XAML ..."

-fren

Re:Embracing and Extending XUL?

[miguel]

XUL is more of a standard: there is a specification
which describes what things must do, and there are
a couple of implementations (Mozilla's being the
most popular one).

XAML on the other hand is a serialization format:
every tag in the XML is looked up in the class
libraries, and every attribute as an event or as
a property to be set. So the resulting markup
is just a way of creating instances of your classes.

The idea of XAML can be used with any class
library really, its not limited to Avalaon (for
instance, MyXAML is a XAML implementation for
Windows.Forms). Like I said on the interview,
what makes XAML/Avalon powerful is that it runs
on a sandbox, and it has a set of fairly recent
controls as opposed to those we have grown used
to on the Web.

Miguel.

Re:XAML is only scary because it's Microsoft

[GarfBond]

I haven't read the article (duh), but from what I remember, XAML wasn't a complete overhaul of HTML. XAML was more like a way of using XML to design your user interfaces, integrated completely into Windows. It's not designed to work with anything but Longhorn.

Does that technology sound familiar? Oh right, it does!

XUL (pronounced "zool") is Mozilla's XML-based User interface Language that lets you build feature-rich cross platform applications that can run connected or disconnected from the Internet. These applications are easily customized with alternative text, graphics and layout so they can be readily branded or localized for various markets. Web developers already familiar with Dynamic HTML (DHTML) will learn XUL quickly and can start building applications right away.

Obviously, Mozilla's focus is on "cross platform," whereas Microsoft would much rather just focus on the one.

Java on .NET is an open source reality.

[JanusFury]

Say hello to IKVM!. It works with Mono and MS's .Net implementation, and has already been demonstrated running full-fledged Java applications like Eclipse, along with translating between aspects of the Java and .NET world. It's a very cool project, and I look forward to seeing it completed.

What's scary?

[Jugalator]

Longhorn has kind of a scary technology called Avalon, which when compounded with another technology called XAML, it's fairly dangerous. And the reason is that they've made it so it's basically an HTML replacement. The advantage is it's probably as easy as writing HTML, so that means that anybody can produce this content with a text editor.

The main application code is supposed to be written in a .NET language like C# or VB.NET if I'm not mistaken. Yes, XAML apps are similar to HTML pages, but they, like HTML, also need a scripting part to actually do something and not just be static. And that's what e.g. C# is for.

Re:Nice wrap-up

[Jotham]

Very nice diagram and it'll continue to grow with other interesting projects such as Tao which adds OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, etc as your opensource alternative to DirectX.

Hopefully those that still view C# as microsoft lock-in, will see that C# is an open (ECMA approved) language, and Mono is doing a great job of supporting it. The choice (and any potential lock-in) is really in what APIs you use, which is no different from a C++ programmer choosing between DirectX or OpenGL.

Errr... This already exists, dear.

[Balinares]

You've just described what DCOP does in KDE. Contact info is offered by the address book component, which can be queried by the email suite, the IM tool, etc. The entire desktop is built upon this approach, in fact.

The Freedesktop group has begun working on a generalization of DCOP called D-BUS, primarily geared toward exchanging message between backend (hardware detection...) and frontend (desktop environment), if I got it right, but I think that GNOME will also eventually be able to use it to tap into KDE components as well. This would be really nice.

What about XUL?

[ManikSurtani]

Moz developers out there? Excuse my ignorance, but this XAML beast sounds an awful lot like XUL. So in a sense, the OS world has had a XAML alternative for a few years now - just a damn shame the Moz platform isn't ubiquitous enough to promote proper takeup of XUL. And if XAML is such a threat (and I see why), is it being developed along some standards? Is M$ going to submit this to ECMA as well? Why can't Moz/XUL start publishing "HTML New Generation" specifications, get corp buy-in from the likes of IBM, Sun, Novell, etc. to try and get XUL and XAML to converge?

Re:For those who don't speak Spanish, but speak en

[ffub]

For those that don't speak Spanish but English with latin stems, mono* is a prefix meaning single or singular, e.g. monotheism - the belief in one god.

For those that speak slightly geeky American English, mono is short for mononucleosis, which is another term for glandular fever.

For those that speak common English, mono means a single sound source, i.e. monophonic as opposed to sterophonic.

But for the Spanish speakers of the world... it's Monkey.

* I know not it's true etymology.