WPF/E for unexpected uses
Here’s an interesting thought; if Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere is a potential Flash killer, can it be adopted for unconventional means like making games and cartoons.
I believe making web page animations is a subtle art with 0 credit going to the people who make pictures slide across the screen or menus drop down. Users discount these animations because they already have them in their desktop environment and expect the same behaviour from a menu in a web page. Most of the time web page animations are a concoction of Flash and javascript burying the work of the Flash artist in source code.
The only time I’ve been truly aware of seeing Flash in action has been watching one of the many internet cartoons or playing some casual game. Some favourite cartoon sites include Homestarrunner, Joe Cartoon, Kill Frog and Ill Will Press; while probably the definitive site for Flash games is Newgrounds.com
On a side note Stongbad raises an interesting question about naming conventions using in IT; Microsoft now seems interested in putting /E after their technology (WPF/E, SQL/E).
What can we expect from Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere? Well, I’d like to find out (after I’ve done my talk on CardSpace and OpenID) and I’m going to make some simple arcade style games to test the theory.
