What is XAML - A Brief XAML Overview

I had some questions about what XAML is.

It was created by Microsoft and is the basis of the WPF library in .NET 3.0. Basically it is an XML definition for rich GUIs. WPF/E is a subset that allows the same GUI code to run in an application and a browser. It is not just IE specific either, as and browser with the WebBrowser control supports it - that includes Netscape running in IE mode, and FireFox (via its IE tab extension)

To see a simple example of what it looks like, check here:

Simple XAML

Adobe’s Flex2 (when they bought Macromedia) is also a competitor to XAML. This also has its own XML based language that compiles to Flash giving you a rich client experience on the web. Flash is one of the most widely distributed third party tools, so most people will be able to use it without downloading anything.

There is another open source project called OpenLaszlo that abstracts this further by allowing you to compile to other options like Javascript.

It will be interesting to see if XAML can wrest some of the hype away from AJAX.