[Sigia-l] Intelligent signs at Microsoft

[Terrence Wood]

On 16 Aug 2005, at 10:11 AM, Listera wrote:

> Terrence Wood:
>
>> Well I hope it does a better job than MS Words attempts at producing
>> HTML.
>

> You missed the point on this one; perhaps you need to see the Ch 9 
> video
> linked on that page to better understand the 
> relationship/transformation.

The above was meant as humorous MS bashing... but I am a kiwi, and 
apparently our humor goes past some people. It has nothing to do with 
the topic at hand except the loose concept of 'transformation' which 
Word does poorly.


> HTML is a markup language. XAML (like XUL and MXML) is a declarative
> language that is used to define UIs. XAML is not really a programming
> language/executable.

It's pedantic IMO as to whether a language is compiled or interpreted, 
as they require a similar skill set to understand and use. Pretty sure 
the ML stands for markup languge which make the above pretty much the 
same.

>
>> 1. Programmers can't design, and designers can't program.
>
> That's debatable (well, I've been doing both for two decades :-) But 
> the
> point of Illustrator-to-XAML is *precisely* to bridge that gap that 
> exists
> for many. Designers continue to design in a tool they know, 
> Illustrator. The
> proposed plug-in converts one object model (.ai) to another (XAML).

so it's XSLT, and let's not forget you assert that ML's are not 
programming languages ;-)

>> 2. HTML is structural, Illustrator is visual.
>
> That's nonsense. Indeed, Illustrator is an extremely object oriented,
> hierarchically structured app that allows you abstract drawing code in 
> a
> visual environment. It's this OO aspect that the plug-in uses to map
> Illustrator's objects to XAML's, without such structure you wouldn't 
> be able
> to do it.

Huh? HTML is a form of SGML (S stands for structure). Unless things 
have changed radically since v10, I simply don't understand how 
Illustrator is object orientated - it has shapes that you can push 
around, but that's not OO. Are you confusing the nature of the 
application with the format it stores it's files in (which also is not 
OO)? See my point below about vectors.

>> 3. The 4th dimension is not represented in Illustrator.
>
> One of the things that Michael demos in the video is precisely that: he
> animates over time in XAML what was static in Illustrator, with a 
> simple
> time tween.
>
I was not talking about animation, I was about interactive elements 
(buttons and forms, which also sit in the 4th dimension - change over 
time) but I didn't make that clear enough (you need to read the summary 
together with the narrative). But again, illustrator doesn't animate 
either - you need another application for that. What use is a tween to 
a UI?


>> It's true XUL and MXML are both programming languages
>
> They are decidedly not programming languages, as their name suggest; 
> they
> are markup. Something else does the interpretation/rendering/execution.

Pretty sure they fall in the realm of programmers who, um, program 
stuff with them.


>> The rub is that *generally* programmers can't design interfaces for an
>> audience of non-programmer types, and designers can't program.
>
> Having noticed that, companies like Macromedia and now MSFT, 
> apparently,
> allow designers to work in their own environment and "export" the 
> results so
> that they seamlessly and natively become the input for programmers 
> (via the
> declarative markup).
It sounds like a good ideal... what application from MM would a 
designer use to generate UI's for FLEX for example?


>> HTML is a structural language, and requires a structural source, 
>> whereas most
>> documents are created purely in the visual plane, and UI's most 
>> certainly will
>> be.
>
> You are thoroughly confusing the visual *appearance* of a doc and the
> underlying data format that produces it.

No I am not. Have you ever converted a bunch of documents into some 
variant of SGML? Most legacy documents are created in a way to acheive 
a visual effect (i.e. they print well), but contain little or no 
structural information (e.g A heading is made bigger and bolder 
visually. A pie chart is a bunch of vectors that knows nothing of the 
data it represents).

>  An Illustrator drawing *no matter
> what it depicts* is an *extremely* structured doc. Adobe has moved PDF 
> (also
> the basis for Illustrator docs) to XML over the last two years.

No it's not. It has shapes which are described as mathematical 
relationships  (i.e vectors) with a set grammar be that .ai, or xml. 
Document structure (i.e the purpose of an element and it's relationship 
with other elements) doesn't enter into it. Again, are you confusing 
the content of the document with the way the document is stored?


>> Wireframes can be used to describe interaction but how do you marry
>> that programmatically with a 2 dimensional visual representation of 
>> the
>> UI?
>
> You need to watch the video.

Seriously, I'm not going to download a 25 minute video on dialup in New 
Zealand  to watch a tweening animation - but if it answers the above 
question, then perhaps you can provide a summary. I am talking about 
interaction and UI's, not animation.


kind regards
Terrence Wood.