Visual Studio 2010 launches today.  Tomorrow, is the launch (if not the release) of Silverlight 4. Neither of these launches involves the launch of XAML, yet in my opinion the release/launch of Visual Studio 2010 brings XAML into the mainstream.  It does this by providing a visual designer within Visual Studio which truly supports the design of business applications.

While Blend exists for those looking to develop a creative and/or complex user interface, and while certain customer facing applications might see value in such an interface.  For the majority of software even that which is public facing, isn’t looking for a creative user interface.  Most software applications simply look to provide a simple yet distinctive user interface.

The difference is important because a creative user interface focuses on having unique behavior and display characteristics, while the later focuses on having predictable behavior with a distinctive identity.  Up until now to get either of these you were looking at either having someone use Blend or someone who could build the user interface with little or (in the case of Silverlight) no designer support.

Visual Studio 2010 doesn’t replicate the raw creative power of Blend, but again in my opinion it doesn’t need to.  Look most of us that are software engineers/developers have some level of design capability but are quick to step aside from someone who spends full time doing design work.  The majority of software engineers are not looking to design a set of color schemes, logo and branding components.  Blend is designed however to support the creation and application of these items.

What most software engineers do find themselves doing for the majority of applications is laying out controls, assigning background coloring, applying branding, logos and color schemes.  Up until Visual Studio 2010 it was difficult to carry out even these simple design tasks for WPF; and Silverlight 3.0 simply didn’t support visual layout.

Visual Studio 2010 makes it possible for engineers to carry out the core layout of application user interface elements such that many of the people and organizations who either considered the use of these technologies to require over priced consultants or who attempted and shelved such projects to take on these projects.  Moving forward WPF and Silverlight will become the common user interface implementations because just as Windows 7 brought touch capabilities into the mainstream, Visual Studio 2010 brings XAML user interface design into the mainstream.