Microsoft's Road Map for Windows Forms and Avalon

John Montgomery, Microsoft Marketing Maven in charge of .NET and WinFX messaging, has posted the road map agreed on by the Windows Forms and Avalon teams about which UI stack to use and when (an excerpt is presented here):

"Microsoft's roadmap for client UI development has three main phases:

1. "Today, use Windows Forms v1.1 and observe the Microsoft Patterns and Practices guidance for maintaining clean separation between UI and other application logic.
2. "When Avalon v1.0 releases (scheduled for mid-2006), we recommend that applications looking to differentiate their user interface such as Web sites and graphically intensive applications such as complex data visualization look closely at Avalon. Other applications should continue using Windows Forms.
3. "Following the release of Avalon 1.0, the next version of Visual Studio following Visual Studio 2005 will contain tools and designers to support Avalon. At this point, customers should start to move their new development efforts to Avalon and use the Windows Forms/Avalon interoperability features."

Although he mentions it earlier in the piece, but not in the dot points, I'd like to stress that developers use .NET v1.1 and, then, .NET v2.0 ASAP, *before* Avalon. The productivity enhancements alone will knock your socks off.

"he" being John Montgomery, of course.

For complex data visualization now, why not use VG.net? It is the fastest vector graphics system for .net developers, and the only optimized one, to my knowledge.