Flash, Meet Sparkle 493
Robert writes "Microsoft finally released more information about their Sparkle product on a Channel 9 MSDN video. Sparkle is vector based XAML system for doing applications that may have traditionaly been done in flash. Ars Technica's Josh Meier has a few things to say about it, too."
Revolt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open source and alternative browser support? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh, great. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What sort of security vulnerabilities.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sparkle is not a flash killer (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, check out the picture gallery [ranaventures.com] if you can't RTFA.
Re:Open source and alternative browser support? (Score:2, Insightful)
If anything, once SVG gets mainstreamed in Firefox, Safari and Opera (I'm pretty sure Konq already has it), it will completely undermine Windows developers from using XAML.
Re:Oh, great. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sparkle is designed to appeal to the same idiots who think power-point presentations are the best tool for presenting an argument (they're also easily swayed by shiny bright objects, if you catch my drift).
"Look people, you too can program." Even though they can't. This will let them pretend. Of course, it also will provide Microsoft with another revenue streem, for MCSE - Microsoft Certified Sparkle Engineer.
So, how long before the first Sparkle virus, the first Sparkle trojan, and the first Sparkle worm? Lets just say it opens up new vistas.
Re:Oh, great. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sparkle is not a flash killer (Score:5, Insightful)
How about "programs like MS Office" which since God knows when has come with its own separate widgetset? You see, those UI guidelines, those are for *other* programmers to follow.
Re:How can you vouche for the security of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone against SVG? (Score:5, Insightful)
is still technically XML
Often programmers know very little... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How can you vouche for the security of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, do you really want anyone to be able to read and write to your fs through an x(a)ml file? So, if it can do that, and since it is designed to "script" the native UI, what is to keep someone from cloning critical parts of the Vista interface, and fooling you into entering, say, your user name and password into their app? Or tricking you into installing other malware? Or getting you to agree to deleting your root partition when you think you're clicking on "save"?
Like I said, it opens up new Vistas, literally.
WTFV (Score:5, Insightful)
You kids all want to bash on a new Microsoft product without having any idea what it is, what it can do, who it is for, etc.
Sparkle != Flash
Completely built on top of
What does this mean?
It means an artist can use an artist's toolset to create a beautiful fully functional front end, then pass it off to the developer to do the backend. No more mockups that can't be translated into a real application front end.
This is baaaaaad news. (Score:5, Insightful)
XAML is a Windows-only technology, designed to make the Web one step more proprietary to Microsoft. Don't let them do it. Keep the web based on cross-platform tools. Steer cleer of XAML.
Re:How can you vouche for the security of this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft pays lip service to security. That's all. Their "big security push" that they so proudly declaimed, where they spent a "whole month" concentrating on making their people more aware of the problems of buffer overflows, etc., was pure marketing bullshit. You can't change decades of irresponsible behaviour with one month of rah-rah rally-the-troops crap.
If they REALLY wanted to concentrate on security in any meaningful way, they wouldn't continually fragment their own resources and create even more maintenance problems (7 versions of Vista? Fucking idiots - they can't even maintain what they've got now - this is a company that doesn't care about quality, or customer needs. Its ALL marketing, all the time).
If they really cared about security, then they'd stop producing standards-breaking stuff (Internet Exploder) that requires web app developers to work 10x as hard to achieve cross-browser functionality, at the expense of resources that these same developers could be devoting to verifying the rest of their code.
So, no, Microsoft will never really be interested in security. After all, security will remove both any perceived need to stay on the forced upgrade path, or to even use their software. It's not in their economic interest to write secure apps.
Re:XAML? (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember when was a practical joke saying that reading a mail could hurt your computer, remember when there was no way to affect your computer just watching web pages, when all the efforts around java was to separate as much as possible what is from internet from what is the viewer's computer. And of course, Microsoft gived us Outlook, Internet Explorer, and ActiveX to change those obsolete ideas with really trivial examples.
I really hope Microsoft has learned from its past mistakes, else a lot of people will die laffing on the people that still keep trusting in them.
Re:Revolt (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice going Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't encourage them... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Often programmers know very little... (Score:3, Insightful)
That is why there are developers who develop the code, GUI designers who develop the GUIs, intermediaries between the GUI designers and the coders, and analysts between all of them and the clients.
A properly functioning team will get all the information they need. You won't have to worry about programmers bumbling along with the clients, because the analysts who are talented at such tasks will be the ones performing them.
In any case, what we get down to is the fact that this technology from Microsoft will enable the specialization of a development team. The GUI designers will be able to work independently of the programmers. This in turn will lead to improved GUIs. That's what Microsoft will truly need if they wish to compete with the fantastic GUI designs of Mac OS X.
Re:WTFV (Score:5, Insightful)
That's right folks, no more of that annoying consistency between GUI applications, now anything that the guy down in marketing can draw is a workable GUI - just think of the possibilities. Microsoft is not a believer in consistent elegant or intuitive GUIs, Micorosoft is all about empowering developers, and graphic designers, and wackjobs with no aesthetic sense. You too can finally design and implement that stunning piece of GUI genius you always imagined.
Have you ever noticed how everybody is a GUI design expert and always know better than everyone else how a GUI should look and function? Well maybe we'll finally find out what the world would be like if all those self taught HCI geniuses could simply create whatever they could draw. I'm sure it will be wonderful.
(I can see that the Sparkle concept is both quite interesting and has some potential for good application, I just don't think having random arrogant artists all designing their own GUIs is one of those good applications Sparkle.)
Jedidiah.
Re:I've seen it (Score:2, Insightful)
Depending on the programming environment you're using, this is possible now.
Using RealBasic, I've been able to whip up some useful programs in relatively little time.
I never migrated to VB.Net but VB6 was useful in the same regard.
LK
Re:Oh, great. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the C. P. Snow Divide of Sciences and Humanitie (Score:4, Insightful)
So they
a) either have no f*cking idea what that's like
b) are prone to serious exaggeration
or
c)You're making it up and are one of those people that think 'George Lucas raped your childhood'.
Come on, calm down a tad... I use Windows and MS products as well as a lot of OS (Eclipse, Laszlo, PHP etc. etc. ) products every day and really.. I'm not fuming, I'm not frothing... I really am quite happily getting along with my work... and so are all my colleages... and those in the companies we do work in... and everyone else I know.
I agree with the licensing schemes, they are a load of absolute confusing and archaic crud... but the software (which is what we're talking about) is working fine for us all here thanks very much.
Re:How can you vouche for the security of this? (Score:3, Insightful)
They have to be kicked and dragged into continuing to provide security fixes for NT, claiming "sorry, its 5 years old - we don't support it any more".
I challenge you to find any OS manufacturer that doesn't end of life their products after 9 years (NT 4.0 was released in 1996). Would you still support a 1996 version of Linux? How about OS/2? Maybe MacOS? Stop being a retard. Of course they don't have to support NT.
Computer software isn't a "car", "fridge" or "toilet". Name any one of those things that doubles in power every 18 months. Oh yeah - you can't.
7 versions of Vista? Fucking idiots - they can't even maintain what they've got now
Probably the most retarded thing I've heard. They all share the same code base, dumbass. The only thing releasing 7 versions does is confuse the market, not reduce security issues, which tend to be confined to a relatively small number of apps, especially now the default login isn't Administrator and IE drops privs while running.
How many versions of Linux are there?
So, criticize away on MS, but don't make yourself a bigger idiot than their marketing team when you do it.
Re:WTFV (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't use it. I beg you. (Score:2, Insightful)
Than FLASH came. A lot of sites started using it. FLASH is bad enough. Flash is a closed standard. There is a player for Windows, Mac OS and Linux x86. All other platforms are screwed. FLASH has degraded the open availability of the web for many people.
Now we have Sparkle. I'm sure it's brillant. But will we ever be able to write an open Sparkle player? Will MS release Sparkle player for Linux? I don't think so.
If people on the internet start to embrace closed standards and abandon the open one, the internet will not longer be free. All of us using Linux/BSD will soon be looking at empty boxes in our browsers saying "Missing plugin".
That's how corporations will steal the net from the people. By replacing openess with closed standards.
Re:How can you vouche for the security of this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How can you vouche for the security of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft are going to have to get used to the fact that people will start routinely keeping computers as long as they do cars - for ten years or more. So are the hardware manufacturers, for that matter. Even though I personally like having the latest, fastest new hardware - normally upgrading every 2 years, this time around, I feel absolutely no need to upgrade and probably won't for at least the next couple of years.
Re:Often programmers know very little... (Score:1, Insightful)
Not a single member of any team should be working independantly. The programmers should know _why_ the GUI designers are doing what they're doing and the GUI designers need to know _why_ their design is not going to work. They both need to be attending meetings with end users, otherwise you get a big mess of people relaying 2nd or 3rd hand information to the people who need it. Cut out the middlemen and let everyone know what's going on.
Re:the C. P. Snow Divide of Sciences and Humanitie (Score:3, Insightful)
*cough*bullshit*cough*
Sorry for your reality check (you must really be unlucky to meet so many disappointed customers), but i don't believe a word of it. Give people a tool and they will always find something wrong with it. And ofcourse they will mention that, before mentioning the good parts of it.
Yes, i use Windows too. Yes, i dislike things about it. Hate it? Not really. I can do so much more on Windows than i can on any other OS. Oh yeah, i'm using Linux too, but not for the desktop. Not even for server in some cases. Active Directory is a really nice thing that is well supported, documentated and has been in real-life production for quite some time now and i can't think of anything that i would replace it with.
I also honestly think that your reality is kind of tainted by your opinion about MS too. I mean, this sentence:
"They hate the viruses, the downtime, the forced upgrades, the patch hell, the crappy products - everything"
Let me go over this, word by word:
viruses: fault of a sys/net-admin. It's no big deal installing a good antivirus, even network-wide.
downtime: redundancy. really. have multiple servers do the same thing. Our network here is 100% windows and has close to 99% uptime. More downtime? Ah, hire a (better) admin!
forced upgrades: does somebody from Microsoft stands behind you with a baseballbat, threatening to smack you silly if you don't upgrade? Anyways, we have upgrades all the time. The only persons who complain (if you can call it that) are the sysadmins, but that's just a select few compared to the normal users who should not notice these upgrades.
the patch hell: what patch hell? Please explain. I've just patched a terminal server using windowsupdate. One reboot later and the server is back in production. Hell? Not more than applying a patch for any other OS.
everything: right.
So, again, i think you're personal vendetta against MS is in the way here. Come with me and i'll take you on a tour through the building. I'm sure that alot of people will complain, but that in the end it won't be as bad as the customers want you to think. People who use computers complain. It's always been this way, and it will never change.
"The world and Microsoft are heading for a divorce."
Don't get me wrong, i would love to see the day that our systems run 100% MS-free. But the reality is, that (most) MS products are well supported, documentated and in use for longer than its other-OS-alternative, and therefor make it a better product. I wouldn't like to implement an opensource product in the network, and then find out when i have a problem with it, that i can't go anywhere for support.
Moderating (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyhow, how is this post at all interesting. It is just another person claiming that everybody hates Microsoft, when Microsoft somehow still pulls a vast majority of market share. Does anybody in the world believe, that as Mr. Hudson says "Not one person said they liked using Windows". Just so you can stop using that line, I would like to say that I like using Windows.
Re:Often programmers know very little... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Programmers in general are not like workers on an assembly line. Doing the same over and over - specialisation - will bore most of us out of our minds. This will cause morale to plummet.
2. A company where a GUI programmer can only do that one thing, will have problems when they need him to do something else. In the current world we can't count on being able to just produce the same thing for years.
No, specialisation is for narrow minds.
Re:the C. P. Snow Divide of Sciences and Humanitie (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, don't blame the system admins for something that is flawed by design and intent.
Re:Anyone against SVG? (Score:3, Insightful)