Silverlight

[kandr]

They aren't half having a whine at Bob Muglia over on the Silverlight Team blog:

"We have almost completed the prototype phase of a million dollar development project and the statements made have placed significant doubt on the project continuing and made my company look foolish to my client..."

"I've been building a website over the past 2 years that incorporates 20,000+ lines of Silverlight on the client side (and yes, it really does need to be that complex.). I've been completely trusting Microsoft's commitment to this platform, but I'm now very very worried indeed. I've just spent all weekend learning GWT..."

"I've been flooded with Silverlight development opportunities lately. Things were really taking off, and it looked like my future was secured. When my phone stops ringing and I end up in the unemployment line I hope you're standing right behind me Bob..."

...and there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth

These deserve it betting their career on that tulip.

[d000hg]

Heaven only knows why Microsoft thought the world was in need of another proprietary plugin technology. Still, they've never shown the slightest understanding of anything to do with the web, so it was probably to be expected that they'd do something dumb like that. Presumably once Windows Phone 7 fails the whole thing will just disappear for good.

Except that WP7 is getting cautiously good reviews (all reviewers seemed slightly surprised) and most people who develop with Silverlight seem to like it. It seemed for a time like they might actually gain a foothold, then it swung the other way.

Your normally reasonable arguments do seem to suffer when talking about MS. You can't hide your inner Penguin can you

[kandr]

Except that WP7 is getting cautiously good reviews (all reviewers seemed slightly surprised) and most people who develop with Silverlight seem to like it. It seemed for a time like they might actually gain a foothold, then it swung the other way.

Your normally reasonable arguments do seem to suffer when talking about MS. You can't hide your inner Penguin can you

A lot of the reviews will be paid for by MS, I can't see it selling anything near the Iphone/LinuxPhone (AKA android)

[NickFitz]

Except that WP7 is getting cautiously good reviews (all reviewers seemed slightly surprised) and most people who develop with Silverlight seem to like it. It seemed for a time like they might actually gain a foothold, then it swung the other way.

Your normally reasonable arguments do seem to suffer when talking about MS. You can't hide your inner Penguin can you

I'm posting here while I think through a fairly meaty refactoring in the CUK iPhone app; no Penguins need apply

If I understand it correctly, one of the key ideas underpining Silverlight is XAML, a markup language for user interfaces. I wonder where they got the idea of an XML User Interface Language

[VectraMan]

Heaven only knows why Microsoft thought the world was in need of another proprietary plugin technology.

True, but OTOH, a serious rival to Flash is perhaps no bad thing, and if you don't look at it in terms of the world wide public web, but use for internal web applications etc., Silverlight probably works better than any other solution. At least that's what I hear.

I've never done Silverlight myself, but C# is a good language, and certainly miles ahead of clunky old Javascript that the HTML5 ists would have us use. And also the good thing about a plugin is it's browser independent, which HTML5 still isn't (and it's MS that's leading the way with HTML5 compatibility).

This really comes down to prejudice against proprietary technologies vs. "open" ones, not a question of which is best. There's a lot of good reasons to prefer open technologies on the web, but it's a shame that the open technologies set their sites so low. Although HTML5 is looking pretty serious and useful, it's still 10 years behind Flash. And I find that more than a little depressing. I'd love to embrace the open technology, but it's hard to get excited about it. Let's at least have proper OOP in the chosen client side language.

But it's interesting to see MS of all people doing this, perhaps the best evidence there's been a fundamental shift at MS since Bill Gates took a back seat. I can't imagine Gates (or Jobs for that matter) being so prepared to play along with the rest of the industry.

[AtW]

This really comes down to prejudice against proprietary technologies vs. "open" ones

No, this is all about risk factor of betting farm on propriatory technology that can be pulled by that company for whatever reason or just gravely damaged like Microsoft just did - I guarantee you plenty of CTOs who heard that stuff would be reluctant to pay contractors do Silverlight.

I don't like Java but if Sun was totally closed (like it's going to happen as they had been Borged) and pulled out of Java, then it would still be around because it's an open standard that is in heavy use.

Microsoft is right to say HTML5 is the best most compatible version, that does not mean they should kill Silverlight considering that it is derived from .NET platform anyway, unless they plan to do it to .NET

[kandr]

True, but OTOH, a serious rival to Flash is perhaps no bad thing, and if you don't look at it in terms of the world wide public web, but use for internal web applications etc., Silverlight probably works better than any other solution. At least that's what I hear.

I've never done Silverlight myself, but C# is a good language, and certainly miles ahead of clunky old Javascript that the HTML5 ists would have us use. And also the good thing about a plugin is it's browser independent, which HTML5 still isn't (and it's MS that's leading the way with HTML5 compatibility).

This really comes down to prejudice against proprietary technologies vs. "open" ones, not a question of which is best. There's a lot of good reasons to prefer open technologies on the web, but it's a shame that the open technologies set their sites so low. Although HTML5 is looking pretty serious and useful, it's still 10 years behind Flash. And I find that more than a little depressing. I'd love to embrace the open technology, but it's hard to get excited about it. Let's at least have proper OOP in the chosen client side language.

But it's interesting to see MS of all people doing this, perhaps the best evidence there's been a fundamental shift at MS since Bill Gates took a back seat. I can't imagine Gates (or Jobs for that matter) being so prepared to play along with the rest of the industry.

HTML 5 and Flash are totally different, you cant compare them, as is Javascript and C#. What a moron, yeah lets allow MS to decide where web development should go next, forget all the standards bodies, all the openness. We'll be paying MS a license free to browse the web.

[RichardCranium]

most uniformed post ever.

"uniformed" ?

[kandr]

"uniformed" ?

Sorry, I was so astounded at that post and its stupidity that I couldn't type. This is a new low for CUK.

[VectraMan]

HTML 5 and Flash are totally different, you cant compare them, as is Javascript and C#. What a moron, yeah lets allow MS to decide where web development should go next, forget all the standards bodies, all the openness. We'll be paying MS a license free to browse the web.

Obviously by "HTML5" I'm included the whole package (CSS3, SVG, Canvas, video etc.), and although they may be quite different underneath they essentially are used for the same purpose. We're being told that HTML5 is the future for any kind of online graphical presentation, or training, or simple games, or "apps" if you insist on using that term, anything that goes beyond the mostly static text of the web, and the things that Flash or Silverlight (or Java applets if you're really desperate) might have been used for up to now.

So why can't we compare two things that can be used for the same purpose? Please explain. What do you think Flash is used for that makes it totally different?