Different ? Yes. New ? No.

The missing piece is a nice API to handle all this, and maybe a framework. Oh, then some XSLT to transform XUL <=> XAML. ;^)

It also likely requires a well formed MVC architecture for the application.

BTW: There was an attempt to provide a pTk style mapping for XUL, but it seems to have "withered on the vine".

Some resources:

• XUL::Node
• XULPlanet
• XAML (thats just the top link on Google, not an official MSFT link)
• Venkman (a Javascript IDE written entirely in JS and XUL)
• Helene (a nice IDE-style text edittor written in JS)
• Drawing with JS

I'd love to be able to apply all of that, but the lack of a single coherent API to support it makes it a bit difficult (tho XUL::Node might be a start). As to how a server app should behave, I suspect that trying to route everything thru the usual Apache/mod_perl channel might be difficult; you may want to consider HTTP::Daemon. As to threading/forking, I'll offer Thread::Apartment as a possible (albeit immature) solution.