I was just reading the .NET whitepaper-"ette" about Windows Forms technology. It sounds a little like Active Documents was described in the beginning.

Hopefully, this new technology will make it into reality. It would be nice to be able to write front-ends in a common language (automated testing! junior developers creating UI!) and fire (VFP) components for data access. We could do this today with VB front/VFP back, but VB brings a lot of other stuff to the table that I'd rather not have to master, just to create a form.

Anyone else interested in this new direction?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/nextgen/technology/winforms.asp