re: Silverlight Experiment: Create a PullDown Menu using Storyboards.

Ola Karlsson — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:56:02 GMT

Hi Scott,

What's your view on building up the XAML declaratively vs programmatically?

I've heard some people say that when you're working with something which is known at design time you should always set it up declaratively in the XAML. And only use the programmatic approach when dealing with unknowns, like when pulling in things from a datasource.

I came to think of it after reading this post where obviously you're building the UI programatically.

Cheers,

Ola

re: Silverlight Experiment: Create a PullDown Menu using Storyboards.

scbarnes — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:05:10 GMT

There is no specific ruling or best practice on which of the two. Any whom declare this are wrong firstly as they whole charter for have both options is that, options.

My personal preference is to keep as much logic out of the XAML as possible, as from personal experience in Flex I found it to be cumbersome at times when I didn't need it to be (ie burying logic into a mutated mix of both MXML and ActionScript 3.0 can get you into trouble..)

I could also be dragging in some Flex legacy into the new Microsoft world as well? I've not yet mastered the full potential of our UX Platform given it's age, but I've found that with Visual Studio 2008 as a tool along side Expression Blend, the smart money on RAD would have to be on keeping as much of the logic in VS2008 - code.

For now.. whom knows what the future will hold though going forward?

Just keep your options open and leave rules to those whom don't believe in Rule #1 of programming. Always look for ways to break rules.

Scott.