I abhor the mix of HTML/CSS for UI design. I'd rather code UIs in Actionscript.
The web browser as an abstraction for general use UIs is just not ideal.
XAML might be a company induced mess underneath but my point is that you don't have to be XAML expert to make nice interfaces. I made CRUD apps on WPF and rarely did I have to touch XAML directly. I had a big thick book on XAML and it sat unopened on my shelf.
I am forced to do front-end webdev work and I hate it. I need to worry about UI breaking instead of worrying about business logic.
Let's say client needs a dropdown menu added at a certain location. On desktop this is cake on most toolkits.
On web the problem is that there is no certain location, there is no absolute. You have to delve deep into CSS abyss to figure out how the component will behave.
It could be better, but it's even got a proper grid system now, close to wpf's. From what i remember though, wpf's styles also had some rough spots.
- how is it supposed to adapt to different resolutions?
- is an inner absolute component allowed to escape its container?
- how does it layer with other components?
The CSS required to position an element at an absolute location must take all of these into consideration, and I'm not sure how much better a native toolkit can make it.