[ANSWERED] Acropolis

• Acropolis has been mothballed - "the ideas will find their way into future versions of .NET"
• This lifts the cloud that hung over the future of CAB; developers need no longer wonder "should I develop in CAB or wait for Acropolis?"
• The Microsoft patterns & practices people (p & p) who gave us CAB are stepping into the breach. They are now carrying the MS banner for composite UI development.
• CAB for WinForms lives!
• There are two extant CAB variants for developing in WPF
  • SCSF 2007 allows you to drop WPF parts into a WinForms CAB application
  • WPFCAB is CAB translated to WPF - same CAB APIs but with WPF UI controls.
• P & P is launching a new effort called WPF Composite Client (WPFCC) that will be rebuilt from the ground up with WPF firmly in view. It will abandon the CAB interfaces but it will carry forward the critical architectural elements.
• I feel very good about the prospects for WPFCC and would expect a working version in one year to 18 months.
• While there will be no way to migrate from CAB to WPFCC automatically, I think that the transition will be reasonable and certainly easier than if you tried to move from a standard .NET app to WPFCC.
• Customers who have existing investments in CAB should be pleased because there is now money and attention for CAB development and there is a realistic prospect of a CAB successor.
• Customers who were thinking about CAB but worried about Acropolis should consider developing in CAB for WinForms today. If they want to get into WPF, they should consider WPFCAB today.

Bill J.