When I step into a new project, my typical mode of operations is to gather goals and issues from as many people as care that I can find, stir it all up with what I think is important, run it up the flag pole, repair the bullet holes a few times and then execute. I’m in the “gather” mode on the SCDC right now and I’m curious what your goals and issues are for the SCDC as it stands today and for what you’d hope it to become tomorrow. Feel free to respond to this post (even anonymously if it makes you feel more comfortable) or email me. The idea is that the SCDC becomes a valuable place for Microsoft developers building Smart Clients of all kinds, but particularly using Windows Forms, the Compact Framework, Visual Studio Tools for Office (did you know that they have a ClickOnce equivalent?) and WinFX.
BTW, I’m still the Content Strategist for the Longhorn DevCenter, so don’t go getting your hopes up that I’ll stop beating that particular drum. : )
“[Avalon is] needed by control developers everywhere so they can create controls with great usability without hiring an army of Win32 experts. It’s needed by end users because they deserve to have great usability in all their applications, not just the ones that Microsoft threw a bazillion dollars at.”
I also like what he has to say about Avalon vs. Windows Forms for application developers:
“It’s also important to realize that from an application developer’s perspective, there is little difference between Avalon and Windows Forms. For years there will be interesting controls built from both technologies.”
In other words, Avalon is the necessary next step to build more powerful controls so that users get the most out of their applications without requiring a giant change in development methodology for application developers.
Joe Stegman, Lead PM on the Windows Forms team, talks about how tight the integration between Windows Forms and Avalon will be, including hosting Windows Forms controls inside of Avalon, Avalon controls inside of Windows Forms and sharing a data binding model. In other words, developing on Windows Forms is a wonderful way to get tasty managed UI goodness today and long into the future, whether you'd like to target Avalon and/or Longhorn in the future or not.
That was interesting. I spent all week getting ready for the big announcement, we launched it on a Friday and then I took off for a week of fun in the sun. And now, it’s taken me a week to catch up with what everyone is thinking. People I’ve found particular interesting are:
Chris Anderson, Architect on the Avalon team (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Joe Beda, recently formerly on the Avalon team (1)
In the meantime, I’m re-aligning the Longhorn DevCenter content with our new goals, making sure to keep on my toes as things suss out (we’re far from completely sussed on the details or implementations of this announcement, which is why watching internal and external commentary is so interesting right now).
