Razor for MAUI is available in the Experimental Blazor Mobile Bindings, but I doubt it will make the 7.0 cut. Having worked extensively with both XAML and Razor and Blazor, I can 100% guarantee that Razor + DI is 10x better than XAML.
In C# 9 there will be Source Generators, an easy way to generate code in a build task before compilation. That will remove the need for Reflection in many areas. Work is also underway to identify and remove all "linker" dangerous code. Once the SDK is linker safe and has a lot less reflection, AOT becomes a lot easier.
Mono is now part of the dotnet family so I suspect they are going to use that for AOT in C# forwards. Starting with Blazor.
The download size does make it hard to use for a "public" site, like a webshop. But it is a different story for an application, like an intranet solution or app like Figma. A first time download of a few MB's is not a problem, as you regularly use it. Like a desktop application.
It is the first time you can develop a full stack application (client and backend) in one language in one debugging session. For C# that was possible with Silverlight.
Small companies (like mine) that deliver applications and have full stack engineers can have some amazing productivity!
So for my needs I'm really excited with something like Blazor, and this was only the first release.
It was not in the box. Back then, it was still quite difficult to get a hold on an actual R3 box here in Europe. There was 1 official reseller here in the Netherlands and I actually bought their official demo machine: the famous first dual processor Abit BP6 with 2x 400Mhz Celeron processors. When picking it up in their office I spotted the poster and asked if I may have it. Still got a T-Shirt and a hat too ;-).
Well, let's hope they open source Silverlight next so I can finally upgrade to Visual Studio 2017 when maintaining my apps (that are still in daily use by happy customers).
The next step in my view is the addition of quality components to the Forms base, and they are doing just that at the moment. I have reviewed and given input for CollectionView, FontIconSource and other specs that are actively being worked on. I saw Miguel demo-ing my input in .NET Conf in the demo Shell app, so they are listening! You did a few stellar Pull Requests yourself, with the Label Spans.
I took them a long time to restructure the project after Jason Smith's leave of absence, but I think David Ortinau is doing a stellar job and the GitHub project is an exemplary open source project. It needs more community involvement, and the F100 stuff you helped drive was very, very good. Next to better components and adding more resources this is another challenge for the project at hand.
I agree it is a bit of a Linux on the Desktop story, "next year", but taken the task at hand (so many platforms), the pace is not that bad. In the mean time I can produce good apps with a few extra libraries, so what...
Just enable AOT by hacking the proj file and suddenly you have amazing performance in release mode (but bigger APK). Normal builds have been getting steadily better for Android.
That is because Widows Start search does not do a String.IndexOf(search.ToLowerCase) > -1 but a String.StartsWith(search, EVERYCULTURECRAPTHINGIEVERDIDINDOTNET).
So to find µTorrent, you don't type 'tor' like any sane person on earth will do, but have to "translate" that to µ to a u, and even then it will not show up. I have to type 'uto' to find it. Easy, right?
I'm still working heavily with AngularJS (1) and in combination with components (1.5+), TypeScript and a MVVM approach it is very clean and productive. Even for all its flaws, it still very easy to start with in 10mins, include 1 lib in 1 line and "Hello World" is up and running.
Compare that to the space ship Angular 2. They really made an outstanding effort to create a huge barrier of entry for anyone not having a degree in DevOps. I'm an old fart, I don't need your stinking CLI, Grunt, Gulp, NPM etc stuff.
Compare that to Vue.js really shines in this regard with the same level of entry as AngularJS. For me that is part of what I thinks makes it a succes.
When choosing a new framework I tend to not look for the future, but look in the past. I chose what was mainstream 2-3 years ago, which means right now still AngularJS for me. This means I'm a leecher on StackOverflow, but so be it. I have my own company and clients pay me for working applications, which means I have to choose my tools as efficient and effective as possible. By choosing last years model, it is less sexy but will get me from A to B with the same speed plus added reliability. At the same time I'm keeping a close look to Vue.js and if still going in the same direction next year as it is now, I will definitely switch to it.
I have been working now for 2 years with Typescript on a heavy SPA in combination with ASP.Net / AngularJS 1.5 components, and absolutely love it. I have zero compiler issues. We started with plain javascript but switched to Typescript later on, and it still amazes me how many small mistakes we made that have been preventing by just adding typing. Automatic Refactoring and Find Usages alone are worth 10x the small delay in compilation.
The biggest gripe I have is that Chrome debugging is hell, because sometimes it will recognized the typescript, sometimes only the javascript. I have hit Ctrl-P many times to "establish" mappings between files running in IIS Express and local files. Miss and hit.
I use console.log all the time so I don't understand your comment in that regard. It works perfectly fine with Typescript.
Have you tried using it in VS2017? Nowhere to be seen. The runtime is supported yes, but you try combining and debugging a Silverlight solution with a .Net Core web app.
No Xamarin Studio on the mac vs on Windows. Logical I think because Windows has the real Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio Windows is based on GTK# (AFAIK, I think the mac UI is native Xam since last year) it is limited on the Windows side / feels quirky.