Longhorn - I

Longhorn - I

This weekend I had some time at my disposal, So I kind of got into the process of reading up on longhorn, since I have been reading a lot about it in the blogs that I frequent, It just started as an exercise of me trying to get my hands around the concepts and what it has to offer. Well I think I managed to get a pretty good idea from the various PDC presentations and some articles that I was reading.

Highlights from the reading:
Win32 API is dead, It has been replaced with WINFX
        This is a rationalization & dramatic simplification
        70000 Win 32 API's  -> 8000 .Net Namespaces & Types
Longhorn development projects are classified as
        client                  (Avlon & Windows forms)
        Web & Services  (ASP.net & Indigo)
        Data Systems            (WINFS & Yukon)
        Mobile PC & devices     (Compact Framework & Mobile PC Optimized)
There are three pillars of longhorn
        Avalon - Presentation
        WinFS - Data Storage
        Indigo - Collaboration
Avalon
        Vector based graphics, delivered from "Cros Processing Compositing Engine"
        Sing hardware driver for both 2D & 3D needs
        Graphical Processing Unit - One stop shop
        Aero UI Elements
        Seperation of Form & Control Design from Procedural Code
        Generate Avalon form & control with XAML(zamel)
WinFS
        Unified View for all data
        No concept of addiing new folders to WinFS folders, but can add grouping based on property value called stacks to Docs

        Items in default locations are pointers (holding links) to files stored in WinFS folders.
        Notifications can be set to itrem related folders
Indigo
        A set of messaging services that provide a secure & reliable asncronous communication channels between applications or Independent systems over multiple transport networks.

        Plumbing for next generation of service oriented architecture design & programming practices

Infact some of the concepts excited me enough to start me off on an hunt to get the required development kit and try some of the stuff, particularly the ones with WinFS.