Just found out via Rob Relyea's blog that Charles Petzold's WPF Book has finally arrived. I know I'll be picking up a copy ASAP, how about you?

I kinda hinted at how lame the Vista bashing was in my first post about the WWDC. Well, Paul Thurott basically says everything I would have to say quite nicely here in his OSX Leopard preview. I can't wait until certain other features are able to be talked about because it'll be really fun to compare those to existing technologies. :P

Anyway, like Paul, I think OSX is great and really enjoy using it. In fact I've gotten so used to using the OS all last week, specifically the command key, that transitioning back to Windows was initially a bit of a challenge! ;)

So, I can't talk about anything that isn't already on the web because, unlike a PDC, everything you learn at WWDC is considered private. What I can say is that while OSX is undeniably kicking XP's ass and probably going to still come out on top of Vista in terms of user experiece, they sure are lacking in the technology areas.

They're making great strides in the languages and tools department. In this area it is quite funny to hear them still try to talk trash against C# and Visual Studio because honestly they are living in the Stone Age in some respects. First off, they're introducing Objective-C 2.0 (see blurb in right hand corner of this page). They're giving in to the garbage collection craze and are adding things like properties and enumerators into the language as first class citizens. They're taking some different approaches to GC than .NET however... sheesh, I wish I could get more specific, but I have to bite my tongue for now.

Next, they're updating Xcode, which is the standard Apple IDE, to support some really nice features that have been around in VS for quite some time. What I must give them serious kudos for though is their new debugging environment called XRay (also on that page near the bottom). That thing is seriously cool and kicks the crap out of any of Microsoft's debugging tools. Another example of where Apple nailed the visualization of data in an intuitive way that Microsoft just never seems to be able to do.

Finally, they are also coming out with a new "Core" framework called "Core Animation" that aims to provide the equivalent of WPF for OSX Leopard. Again, I can't talk about specifics, but from what I've seen it's got some advantages as well as disadvantages over what WPF provides.

The future sure looks bright for Apple developers! I look forward to being able to take advantage of all this new, great stuff.

Well, I'm back in my hotel after a big Day 1 at Apple's WWDC. Before the keynote was even started, people gettig on line were greated by three huge banners promoting Leopard. Makes sense, this is after all the big unveiling, but what was more interesting is that the taglines for these banners, rather than touting something cool about Leopard itself, all poked fun at Vista. They read:

Introducing Vista 2.0.
Redmond has a cat too. A copy cat.
Hasta la vista, Vista.

If you watched the keynote, you also saw them poke fun at Vista UI enhancements and other features that resembled things already in OSX. This was a common theme throughout all the presentations today. While I have no problem finding humor in it, it does at time get repetititve and I can't help but wonder what their obsession with Vista is. They've got a great product and the future sure looks bright (though I'm not allowed to talk about anything I've seen outside the keynote, but that's a subject for the next post). I think they need to move on from the whole MS bashing fascination and start promoting the product for what it is on its own.

Of the things I can talk about, the coolest thing they showed is the Time Machine backup mechanism. Not because the backing up technology is all that exciting or even new, but because of the intuitive and fun interface they slapped on it. This is where Apple beats Microsoft every single time and will continue to do so until Microsoft focuses more on the user experience and less on delivering new plumbing technologies so frequently. I sincerely hope this will happen post Vista. Once Vista is delivered, Microsoft needs to do nothing but focus on visible, end-user enhancements for the next six or so OS releases and those six releases should happen in the next three to four years. They've invested in the future by building a great foundation with the Vista kernel, .NET and W*F pillars. Now all they need to do is put it them use.

My friend Doug pointed me to Miguel's post about WPF today where he calls it the J2EE of GUI APIs. While I've read some of Miguel's previous posts about WPF, to make such a broad statement as this, you would think a person would back it up with some examples of exactly what about Avalon is so overly-complex, but he doesn't. His previous complaints are about things like the sandboxing model (XBAP/ClickOnce), the fact that there's no GUI designer (which now there is with EID and Cider) and ignoring standards (not using SVG/HTML/CSS), but none of those seem to support today's J2EE comparison.

Heck, if any major UI technology is the J2EE of UIs, it's HTML+CSS. You have a set of specs, but all the browser vendor's implement it slightly differently (these days it's usually bugs that cause differences) or not completely (*ahem* certain key CSS features not supported) and then throw in their own special features that if you venture into using (without providing a separate path for other vendors) you immediately end up with lock-in.

I've noticed that sometimes it just takes people a while to really reach the "ah-ha" moment with WPF. I don't think this is necessarily a negative indicator for WPF because it is a complete overhaul of the way we've thought about UIs for a long time (at least most UI frameworks I've ever worked with). For example, the whole logical tree vs. visual tree is tough for people to grasp, but the instant they make a round button with a 3D rotating cube inside of itwithout writing a line of code (i.e. just pure XAML) they get it. The most important thing is though, you don't need to worry about all of that. If you just want to create a simple form with some buttons and some data bound controls on it, it's pretty much the same design-time experience as WinForms thanks to tools like Cider and then, when you're ready to spice the thing up, just hand it on over to your designers and let them add some flavor with EID.

Anyway, I'd love to hear specifics from Miguel because, while I may not agree with him on the subject, I know he's a smart guy and if he says something like this you have to listen and try to understand.

Update 2:40PM ET 8/4:
More people from are taking notice of Miguel's comments. The story behind the post can be found here on Wenser Moise's weblog. Rob Relyea is also tracking the growing discussion over on his blog in this post, so make sure to check that out too. Like I said, when someone like Miguel speaks, people take notice. Let's see how this unfolds...