I could write a long post (by my standards) about one of Daniel’s latest blog entries pointing all the areas where I disagree with him but the reality is pretty much everything he has said is spot on when it comes to the Rich Client vs. Web Client debate.

One thing that I do want to add comment to is the last points that he made about the danger of XAML.

Let this be the creed of XAML developers everywhere, because we face two futures.In one, we have a variety of well behaving and visually consistent applications that communicate with each other easily over the internet. In the other, we have roaming gangs of malcontent apps, enforcing their own rules as to how they should look and feel, and complaining loudly whenever they have to interface with anything else.

I don’t necessarily agree. For a long time I’ve felt that the user interface is the heart and sole of any business application and the more engaging it is from a user point of view the better it will be. Remember that our users today have been fed a staple diet television with special effects - they love these special effects, they want them everywhere.

My advice is think about your user experience up front – experiment with it, prototype it and present it to your users for review. Just because UI components have to be functional doesn’t mean they have to be ugly.

In my world, application design starts with appealing to the eyes!