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...
Its great they seem to be listening to you, they never really listened to me. F100 was brought about because they weren't listening, and the community had to do things they wanted because Xamarin weren't ever getting around to it.
I put a lot of effort into XF, and at the time, it was the best x-plat development environment (for my usage) around. But Flutter has really highlighted its shortcomings and I don't hold much faith that Shell is going to bring it to the front again.
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.
I once rented a tourist bike in Amsterdam because my own bike broke down and the OV bikes were all rented out. I was surprised how often other cyclists rang the bell to me and how people were keeping me distance. That tourist bike was a big warning sign to every other cyclist.
