>>http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-phasing-out-some-of-its-expression-design-tools-7000009116/
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>>For those of us who have danced the Microsoft Dance many times, the writing on the wall should be clear...
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>>The XAML oriented UI tools be phased out ( dropped ) and capabilities will be added to the already great (IMHO) VS ... which has increasingly strong support for javascript and HTML5 ( and which has more an more extension for the like of Coffeescript ... )
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>>Silverlight is already dropped into the Redmond Oubliette.
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>>Finding MS references to XAML and WPF will someday be like looking for pictures of Trotsky or Yezhov in a Stalin era Soviet textbook.
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>>This could not be any more clear if that had shot the XAML team on Channel 9 ( and buried them with the Linq to Sql group )
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>>And yet 5 years from now there are going to be a bunch of developers feeling "blind-sided" and abandoned.
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>>(And others who will wonder if there is a way to port their Foxpro 2.0 Dos screens to jquery-UI or if they can use DBFs in a cloud and still let the user Browse and GO TOP :- ) Some things never change.
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>>The VS stack will be a service API and variety of ORM flavors and jquery / html5 all working nicely in VS. No problem using C# and EF as part of the equation with .NET classes handling a lot of heavy lifting on the server side. (and still being able to swap all that out for a non-MS backend)
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>>For my money, that's a win. I've been playing with Knockback.js and I'm impressed though it is still a little daunting when I am new to both Knockout and Backbone, but so much of this stuff really makes sense. Really have to shake myself every once in a while to not hang on too hard to things I already know, but man, this stuff is cool ! I have not enjoyed development this much for at least 10 years.
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>Interesting POV - but you don't seem to be making a distinction between browser based and desktop apps ?
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>I'm probably a bit biased since a lot of stuff I'm working on is CAD based - and HTML5, never mind how many JS libraries you throw at it has a *long* way to go. SIlverlight, if it had proper cross-platform capability, would be streets ahead - but it doesn't so you are probably right in saying it is on the way down.
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>For native apps on Windows I still think WPF is a great platform. Even if there are no futher releases it's not easy to see ways in which it might be improved. Maybe better UI tools but functionality-wise it's pretty much there.
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>And isn't XAML alive and well in Win8 ?

I'm certainly not speaking to the technical merits - just reading MS tealeaves. The conspicuous absense of any Silverlight at the dev days last fall was in fact the precursor of its abandonement. I am simply guessing that MS will see the future as backing HTML jquery and letting WPF / xaml last as long as its own momentum can take it while ms shifts its focus.

We all know MS not about euthanasia but just takes technologies off life support forgets about them. Kind of evolution by technical ADHD.

I would imagine in the MS desktop world WPF will continue among those who have already mastered and deployed it, but I would guess that future focus and new development will find the HTML5/jquery direction increasingly attractive and ubiquitous. But of course that is just an uninformed guess - and the way I am betting and focusing my shifty paradigm ;-)

And hey, Merry Christmas and may every Child's Christmas in Wales be bright.