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Microsoft Programming IT Technology

Microsoft Woos Developers Under the Silverlight 300

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the go-on-start-wooing dept.
CWmike writes to tell us that with the impending release of their Silverlight 2.0 product, Microsoft is poised to enact the next phase of their plan, wooing developers and designers directly. Microsoft is funding a French open-source project designed to allow programmers to utilize the Eclipse framework to build Silverlight apps. "Microsoft is also releasing for free a set of programming templates called the Silverlight Control Pack under its Microsoft Permissive License, as well as the technical specification for Silverlight's Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) vocabulary via Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. The latter, said Goldfarb, should make it easier for would-be Silverlight developers."
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Microsoft Woos Developers Under the Silverlight More

Microsoft Woos Developers Under the Silverlight

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  • An Even Shorter Summary (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:19PM (#25360635)

    The important parts of the summary:

    Microsoft ... Developers ... ... developers ... ... developers.

    • Re:An Even Shorter Summary (Score:5, Funny)

      by Captain Spam ( 66120 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:56PM (#25361239) Homepage

      Ballmer: "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale Silverlight?"

  • While I don't like Flash. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:20PM (#25360649) Homepage Journal

    Flash is multi platfrom and there is GASH as an option.
    I also trust Adobe to be OS neutral a lot more than Microsoft.
    99% of our your users already have Flash so why make them download and install Silverlight.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But your forgetting... Silverlight is.. awesomer than Flash!

      Credit [xkcd.com]

    • Re:While I don't like Flash. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheRealMindChild ( 743925 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:48PM (#25361131) Homepage Journal
      You do realize that is the same twisted logic that caused a lot of the internet to be IE only?

      99% of our your users already have IE so why make this work with Mozilla

      Same trap. Just a different beast.

      • That's a strawman. Flash is available to everyone pretty much equally, whereas IE is not. It's not a "trap", it's just good sense. Silverlight has yet to show it's face on Linux or Mac. That means that Flash is still a much better choice if you're going to attempt to reach a broad audience.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by abdulla ( 523920 )
          There is Moonlight [mono-project.com]. In the end I'd rather none of these plugins, but if I have to choose, my preference is Flash. Adobe have shown support for multiple platforms, while Microsoft is pretty much delegating that to Mono, which is perpetually playing catch-up.

    • Re:While I don't like Flash. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tom ( 822 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:53PM (#25361193) Homepage Journal

      so why make them download and install Silverlight.

      Because you can.

      Seriously, a lot of things with MS are just power games. The MS keys on your keyboard are an example. By my best estimate, about 1% of users ever use them for anything not an accident.

      • Windows key commands are great -
        • Win-E for opening up a file explorer.
        • Win-M for minimizing everything.
        • Win-Shift-M to restore everything.
        • Win-Tab / Win-shit-tab lets you go through the items on your taskbar like you would with alt-tab.

        The others that I use like Win-R, etc have already been listed. I'm not saying I think it's the best invention ever, those obviously could have been implemented other ways, just that it's not useless.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ignavus ( 213578 )

      I also trust Adobe not to be Microsoft far more than I trust Microsoft not to be Microsoft.

      We need competition - not an abusive monopolist with *even more* market power.

      I don't care how good Silverlight is, Microsoft must be split up before it is even safe to think about such technology in their hands.

      Forget the technology folks, this is ALL about market power.

  • Why not Flash or AJAX? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:21PM (#25360681)

    Keeping in mind I am speaking in a group where there are huge amount of open source zealots. However Flash has the advantage that it runs in Linux, Mac, Windows (And more if you are designing for older versions) while Silverlight is only Windows and Mac.
    Next Flash is usually installed by default on Mac and Windows systems. (And a simple plug in for Linux... But if you guys are so smart you can probably add a plugin yourself anyways or the distribution has it already installed) Vs. Having to install it on Windows and Macs too.

    If you don't need the extra graphics and AJAX method works good too. Plus you don't need to deal with the Closed Source Flash as well.

    • see my comment here [slashdot.org]

      Basically, I ask the same thing, except I throw WebKit out there (Its what Adobe AIR is based on). Flash and Silverlight are proprietary licensed products. WebKit is not.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by CodeBuster ( 516420 )
      I seem to remember that the NBC olympics site (which used Silverlight) had plugin installation that was fairly easy with Firefox (which doesn't support ActiveX so it was obviously not IE only) and didn't require many manual user actions such as downloading and running an installer separately. Now granted, that was on Windows XP, but if it can be made to work with Firefox on Windows with a plugin then wouldn't that same Firefox plugin be available on Linux?

      • Re:Why not Flash or AJAX? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Tweenk ( 1274968 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @05:07PM (#25362079)

        Except that a plugin is not available on Linux. MS touts Moonlight as a nearly complete port of Silverlight to Linux but in fact it's very far from being usable - even Gnash is light years ahead of Moonlight when compared with their closed source versions.

  • It just seems wrong... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by eagee ( 1308589 )
    Like a booby trap. I dunno, M$ is kind of like the US Government for me. I don't trust 'em.

  • So, does this mean (Score:5, Insightful)

    by afidel ( 530433 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:23PM (#25360709)
    We can expect an open source Silverlight viewer? If so and MS has agreed not to enforce any patents on the technology then I see little reason for it to not overtake flash. Flash sucks, a lot. The sooner we have another cross platform app for doing online animations and movies the better.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 )

      How does flash suck? (Any more or less then any of its competition)

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by rumpsummoner ( 1021011 )
        Have you developed on it? It looks good but actionscript is a nightmare if you're used to any language other than javascript.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Darkness404 ( 1287218 )
          Honestly having used Flash on Windows it was by far the easiest programming I have ever done (other than messing around with Scratch but that doesn't count). Yes, if you aren't used to JavaScript it can be a pain, but honestly, if you are an artist Flash is going to make you decent programmer (unfortunately art isn't my strong point so my Flash ended up looking horrible)

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by jellomizer ( 103300 )

          Oh it is a holy war based on language syntax. I thought I was missing a glaring design quality issue about it.

          • Re:So, does this mean (Score:4, Interesting)

            by gaspyy ( 514539 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @04:16PM (#25361527)

            Actionscript is similar to javascript, although in version 3, with strong typing, it starting to feel more like Java.

            Some people - me included - like its flexibility, while others loathe the same thing.

            The only thing I don't like about it is the new syntax for Vector data type (Flash 10)
            C#, Java: int list[] = new int[100];
            AS3: var list:Vector. = new Vector.(100);

        • It really depends on which version of Actionscript you're using. Actionscript 3 was a marked deviation from AS1 and AS2. It highly resembles Java - Object Oriented, single inheritance, supports (multiple) interfaces, has the ability to be strongly typed if you choose, has packages, etc.

          To further blur the distinction between the two, when you compile your AS3 project it actually uses the Sun Java compiler and compiles to Java bytecode. So at this point the only difference between Java and Actionscript

    • Re:So, does this mean (Score:5, Informative)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:26PM (#25360765) Homepage Journal

      It is called Moonlight. http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight [mono-project.com]

      But I am not all that comfortable with it. I think that Microsoft has done enough that I just can not trust them with any "standards" any longer.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Tweenk ( 1274968 )

        Unfortunately Moonlight is nowhere near usable, at least for the average user. Additionally it will contain closed blobs of MS code because of the Novell-MS deal: read up [wikipedia.org]

    • Flash sucks, a lot

      No more than Java, AJAX or Silverlight does. Most of the problems with Flash are the exact same problems that would happen even with Super Open Ultra Stable Plugin's stable version. Also, Flash is supported by a lot of things, the Wii can view Flash files, and so can the largest three OSes (Mac, Linux and Windows), and so can a bunch of other things not to mention that GNASH is in development and is OSS.

      • Re:So, does this mean (Score:4, Insightful)

        by afidel ( 530433 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:47PM (#25361125)
        My biggest problems with flash are CPU usage and stability. The fact that it's not available for anything but x86 is another, albeit secondary concern (mostly around mobile players).

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Darkness404 ( 1287218 )
          Yes, its true that Flash does seem to use up an absurd amount of CPU, but upgrading (or downgrading) your Flash player usually remedies the problem. And the x86 requirement is something that a lot of proprietary software has, though if GNASH ever becomes usable it won't be a concern.

        • Re:So, does this mean (Score:5, Informative)

          by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @05:26PM (#25362263)

          Flash runs just fine on PPC Macs. I have a friend with a Windows Mobile phone that has no problem viewing Hulu Flash movies. (No clue what CPUs in it, but I doubt it's x86.) I dunno where you got the idea that it's x86-only.

    • "Flash sucks, a lot. The sooner we have another cross platform app for doing online animations and movies the better."

      SVG and SMIL so where's my viewer?

    • Yes, via Novel's Moonlight project. And for the second part.. that's there too. I am not a fan of flash, developing stuff with it is always a PITA mainly the differences in ActionScript vs JavaScript... The moderately inconsistant APIs, and the fact that there really isn't a nice developer model. Flex approaches a nice model of development, but Silverlight leapfrogs it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
      I am not a web developper, but do we really need anything more than optimized javascript + SVG ?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by miguel ( 7116 )

      We are getting ready for our first beta of Moonlight 1.0, which will map to Silverlight 1.0, you have a few options to get it running:

      (a) Wait until our official Beta launch, and it will contain an easy-to-install plugin. Click install, restart browser, you are done.

      (b) You can use it today if you build from our source code, it is published here: http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight [mono-project.com]

      (c) Repositories like Packman have RPMs that you can install for various distributions that you can install today.

      We will be

  • Sluts (Score:5, Funny)

    by orsocio ( 955882 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:25PM (#25360743)
    "...under its Microsoft Permissive License..."

    love the way Microsoft kinda imply that open source is so slutty...
    • They've got a point. These projects are letting themselves be manipulated in any way that these nerds can imagine. No wonder they've got such a bad reputation.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Ethanol-fueled ( 1125189 ) *
      If Microsoft were really serious about pandering to the open source crowd then they would use a typical open source license or at least not anything with their own name stamped on it.

      Hubris and ignorance.
      • You mean like the Apache License, and Mozilla Licenses are? (The licenses in the most widely used FOSS applications out there)... MS-PL is pretty much a BSD License plus a don't sue clause.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Ethanol-fueled ( 1125189 ) *
          I didn't mean to imply that a license shouldn't be named after a project or foundation, but the Apache and Mozilla foundations were made from open source so their licenses have more cred than those Microsoft, which has been historically proprietary and anti open-source.

    • i'm still waiting for them to release it under the more "free spirited" Microsoft Promiscuous License.

  • Ugh, I tire of this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheNecromancer ( 179644 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:28PM (#25360803)

    I am so sick of reading these tech articles with an anti-MS bias to them.

    As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code?? Silverlight is a tool that Microsoft is designing so that developers can take better advantage of the rich Internet experience. It steams me that the author of that article seems bent on pointing out that MS has this "ultimate plan" to kill Adobe.

    Why can't people get past the whole pro vs. anti-Microsoft thing? I may be ranting here (apologies in advance), but railing on MS for their past business practices (which I don't condone, BTW) is pointless. I tend to use the best tools available for the technologies that I code for, and Microsoft has some good ones! Sure, they are proprietary, but it could be any large corporation in MS's place, and people would rail on them for being the "big, bad corporation"! Open source has its' place in the industry, as does proprietary software!

    Let's get past the hate, and just stick to what we (developers) do best: write awesome code!! I get stoked when I hear of new technologies coming out (from MS or Sun, or whomever), since that means the online experience users want is getting better, and WE are the ones who give it to the masses!!

    W00t to new technologies!!

    • Re:Ugh, I tire of this... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Microlith ( 54737 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:37PM (#25360929)

      Silverlight is a tool that Microsoft is designing so that developers can take better advantage of the rich Internet experience.

      Sounds like marketing drivel to me.

      Why can't people get past the whole pro vs. anti-Microsoft thing?

      While financials are right in stating that past performance does not guarantee future performance, microsoft does not get the benefit of the doubt. They have (and continue to, albeit subtly) acted maliciously towards their competitors for a long time, and will spread FUD whenever they can to drive users to the "platform of choice*", namely Windows and Windows-derivatives.

      Not to say that Microsoft hasn't come up with some good things. The problem is that adopting these good things puts you right where Microsoft wants you: following them lockstep, but never quite able to catch up.

      That said, your post reeks of cheerleader. Wake me up when Mono catches up to .NET 3.0 (I think they just got 1.0 WinForms support and are nearing 2.0 compatibility?)

      • Mono isn't a 1:1 implementation of .Net ... they are compatible with everything in 2.0 that matters. They have a large portion of the 3.0/3.5 stuff as well. (.Net 3.0 is pretty much an add-on to 2.0, while 3.5 has some core changes).

        I've tested and deployed a number of applications under mono, including one that was built for mono. It's pretty nice, I wish people were more inclined to treat it like a first class citizen in linux distros.

        • Re:Ugh, I tire of this... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Tweenk ( 1274968 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @05:24PM (#25362243)

          Mono isn't a 1:1 implementation of .Net ... they are compatible with everything in 2.0 that matters.

          And Wine is compatible with everything that matters in the Win32 API. That doesn't cause all programs that matter to run correctly.

        • they are compatible with everything in 2.0 that matters

          yeah? Which bits on .NET 2.0 don't matter (linux geeks - that was not an invitation to say 'all of it', k).

          I wish they'd spent their time working on a better OS-level library for multiple languages than burden us with a locked-in Java clone (even if you can write the byte-code in other languages, where they fit with the .NET architectural model, that is)

    • Re:Ugh, I tire of this... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dan667 ( 564390 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:45PM (#25361079)
      I think that you are glossing over three decades of Microsoft stifling innovation, locking out others, and bullying. It is a very healthy thing to scrutinize Microsoft's activity and make sure others know to be wary of them. If they are going to behave differently they are not going to gain trust over night. But there is nothing so far that show that Microsoft is behaving any less badly than they have before.

    • Re:Ugh, I tire of this... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:47PM (#25361113) Homepage Journal

      Well it has more to do with standards. I don't want to have anything I do on the internet tied to one OS, browser, or even software supplier.
      Flash is supported on more OS's and more browsers than Silverlight.
      Also I just can not trust microsoft to keep supporting anything but Windows.
      IE, Mediaplayer, and VBA for Office all show that Microsoft will not support anything but Windows.
      That isn't really politics it is just logic. The internet should be OS and Browser neutral.

      • Re:Ugh, I tire of this... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Foofoobar ( 318279 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @04:03PM (#25361359)
        Agreed. The web is meant to be cross platform and Microsoft keeps trying to tie the web to ther OS or their BROWSER or their TOOLS (which then tie back to their BROWSER which ties back to their OS). This is why people are anti Microsoft because Microsoft is anti-open and 'anti-cross platform'. Everytime they make the motion to be cross platform, they ruin it by tying it in to something else or exploiting it or making it obsolete. They can't just leave something open and cross platform. This is why people are suspicious that the have never accepted the GPL or any other truly open license.

        • 'I disagree with you therefore you're biased.' - every Microsoft Fanboi

          That should be attributed to a large percentage of people on every discussion forum on the Internet. Frankly I think it's much worse when it comes to politics than with technical subjects.

          Another one which is even worse and almost as ubiquitous:

          "You disagree with me, which is a personal attack. You are evil. I hate you."

          I have never been more viciously attacked than by people by people who cannot make this distinction.

          • True, it's every person who cannot overcome personal feelings to look at the real issue. For both of those. But in this case, It's specific to the forum and the people who most often choose to flame here; For open source advocates, Slashdot is their territory and Microsoft people often come here just to bash. Some are less agressive, some more devious (ie I use said open source tool all the time but I a friend introduced me to said Microsoft tool and now I am an instant Microsoft tool) and others are true e

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by corsec67 ( 627446 )

      How is Silverlight going to make my "Internet Experience" better in FireFox on an Ubuntu AMD64 computer?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by aztracker1 ( 702135 )
        Moonlight [mono-project.com] is free and open-source, and isn't going anywhere. MS has offered technical reviews and support to moonlight developers, and you'll likely see moonlight in your native x64 firefox before Flash.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by corsec67 ( 627446 )

          What happens when Silverlight is made incompatible with Moonlight? Moonlight seems to be in the "Embrace" phase, what about the extend and extinguish phases?

          If you say to make stuff work for Moonlight, what happens when executables made for Moonlight don't work in Sliverlight?

    • As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code??

      You forgot "more useful". The more restrictions you impose on your customers, the less useful your code is.

      I may be ranting here (apologies in advance), but railing on MS for their past business practices (which I don't condone, BTW) is pointless.

      To a degree... but if you're relying on their future behavior (ie, not forcing silverlight to be windows-only), looking at past behavior is a decent idea.

      I tend to use the best tools available for the technologies that I code for, and Microsoft has some good ones!

      Yes, they do. But if I don't want my products to be tied to Windows, I have to either look elsewhere or trust Microsoft (in spite of all their history) to play nice.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )

      I am so sick of reading these tech articles with an anti-MS bias to them.

      As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code??

      Well of course, but since when has any Microsoft tool kit provided 'better/robust' code? ( its been decades )

      Their current crop of tool kits ( and language of the week ) are the pinnacle of bloat and internal inefficiency.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )

      Oh, and if hear 'rich experience' one more time i think i'm going to puke.

    • Re:Ugh, I tire of this... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:57PM (#25361269) Homepage Journal

      Saying Microsoft is trying to kill Adobe is "pro-" or "anti-" anything. It's an observation. It's what Microsoft always tries to do.

      I think you're being just a little too sensitive here when talking about a company for which nothing is too low when it comes to smothering the competition.

      Aside from that, if Silverlight is good, people will use it. Frankly, all I could ever get it to do is ask to be installed, even when it supposedly was. I guess it doesn't support Firefox. Flash is closed-source, a performance hog, and Adobe can't seem to port it to 64-bits even though they've been allegedly "trying" for years. If that doesn't tell you volumes about the quality of the code, then nothing will.

      Silverlight is from Microsoft, therefore it will _not_ come without some huge club beating you in the face to lock you into Microsoft regardless of whether it's good or bad. This is an important consideration. Just when software is more cross-platform friendly than ever, Microsoft comes along and tries to set the clock back 10 years. No Linux support? Is this 1998 again?

      These are important considerations above and beyond whether Silverlight is easy to work with and performs well. All Microsoft technology comes with a big ball-and-chain attached, backed by an obscenely powerful company who is not afraid to extort, intimidate and lie to maintain their advantage. For many people, that's not a problem and may even be seen as an advantage. For other people, it could be a deal-breaker.

      If Microsoft wants to be treated based solely on the merits of their technology, then perhaps it's time, after 30 years, that they attempt to compete based solely on the merits of their technology.

      • Why don't you go to the microsoft silverlight site? OK, the presentation is a pretty awful case of marketeering, but what's interesting is that it makes a point of being cross platform and supporting a range of browsers, on windows, mac and linux. The presentation highlights mobile internet on phone, which makes me suspect that a silverlight implementation for mobile devices is just around the corner.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 )

          You assume I care. The only reason I tried to install Silverlight was because Microsoft suggested it in order to take advantage of their new download features. I tried it and it failed miserably. I don't even run Windows any more. I'll care if some online app I want to use requires it, _and_ I can get it running with a minimum of trouble. I'm through fighting and clawing and groveling to get Microsoft crap to work. They get one chance, and if it fails as utterly as Silverlight did for me, then I quit.

    • 1. MS has the developer interia to control the market.
      2. MS continues to fracture the market, rather than compete. People like Icaza are mislead by MS, and end up being MS's Linux department. But it will always be a 2nd rate platform to Windows. This only benefits MS, because now they can make a claim that it "'can' run on Linux", but it actually won't be 100%, because they hold back some libraries.
      3. Of the stuff that is available for linux, it isn't available until way late int he game.
      4. Microsoft doesn'

    • Why can't people get past the whole pro vs. anti-Microsoft thing? I may be ranting here (apologies in advance), but railing on MS for their past business practices (which I don't condone, BTW) is pointless.

      It's not pointless if they are continuing some ugly business practices. Not only is it enough of a track record to merit keeping a suspicious eye on them, they seem to be continuing it. It's enough that they highjacked the ISO standardization practices by stacking the votes or trying to throw procedures and votes out the door to get their Office format standardized, but they are trying to take control of the Open Office format as well.

    • I got tired of it too... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by argent ( 18001 ) <peter&slashdot,2006,taronga,com> on Monday October 13, 2008 @04:06PM (#25361397) Homepage Journal

      As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code?

      I used to be platform-agnostic and hardware-agnostic, but after a few rounds of companies pulling platforms out from under me... "better" code that depends on a single vendor is something I have to look long and hard into before I'm going to jump on board. I don't care whether it's called NextStep or .NET, SmallTalk* or BeOS, if it's under the effective control of a single company it's pre-doomed. Over the past 30 years I've been burned too many times to trust ANY proprietary platform.

      take better advantage of the rich Internet experience

      Another buzz-phrase that was just as scary when it was the rich Desktop experience. That turned into a Microsoft-controlled virus hive. Not going there again.

      I tend to use the best tools available

      Me too, so long as nobody can pull those tools out from under me because they went out of business or changed their goals. I don't care so much whether it's open source or not, so long as there's multiple sources out there.

    • Or lack there of...

      If Microsoft wants to change the world I suggest they try to create a tool that will just 'run anywhere'. Sure, they could create the killer Developer environment and drive the droves of mindless programmers to their wonderful platform, I'm all for it, but at the end of the day if I can't run the final application on my platform then its just useless. What irks me is that Microsoft puts so much time, effort, and money into making sure I can't run it on (pick your platform of choice, an

    • As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code??

      Nope. As a developer, the point is to build a relationship with the consumer of code---end users of various kinds. That relationship is compromised if the underlying technology is untrustworthy, whether for reasons of techical quality or otherwise.

      At the moment, there are so many platforms of sufficiently high technical quality (including Windows) that platform decisions should be made on other grounds. For me: (1) is the platform portable? (2) is it susceptible to embrace-and-extend?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ignavus ( 213578 )

      I am so sick of reading these tech articles with an anti-MS bias to them.

      As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code??

      No. The point is to avoid market lock-in and stop abusive monopoly from *spreading further*.

      If you ignore the politics of the market, you will eventually have no choice of technology. So while you are busy just wanting to look at the technology, Microsoft is busy trying to restrict your choice of technology. If you don't value your freedom, you *will* lose it unless others less blinkered fight the battle for you.

  • silverlight 1.0 had not XAML controls for the simple datagrid control. OMG what a stuff up! You had to go to xceed to get one and pay for it. That little detail made me so mad that I have sworn off silverlight. The message was clear, if your a small development shop, you cannot afford silverlight. Oh by the way, where is the automated testing framework for writting automated UI tests against it? anyone?... anyone?... - StupidPeopleTrick

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )

      Silverlight 1.0 had no data controls in general, it was just for vectorial drawing and animations. Just a marketing trick to get the name out there... originally, Silverlight 2.0 was supposed to be the "first". It went from being WPF/E, to Silverlight, to Silverlight 1.1, to Silverlight 2.0.

      Wasn't the xceed grid for WPF, not Silverlight, though?

    • silverlight 1.0 had not XAML controls for the simple datagrid control. OMG what a stuff up! You had to go to xceed to get one and pay for it. That little detail made me so mad that I have sworn off silverlight. The message was clear, if your a small development shop, you cannot afford silverlight.

      Silverlight 1.0 development was a pain, most people opted to wait for 2. Silverlight 2 includes a datagrid for free.

      Oh by the way, where is the automated testing framework for writting automated UI tests against it? anyone?... anyone?...

      http://blogs.msdn.com/sburke/archive/2008/09/30/unit-testing-with-silverlight.aspx [msdn.com]
      Written by the PM in charge of most of the control development to date.

      Your message was FUD. Any more that I can dispel?
      -ds

  • Really nice Silverlight sample site (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:30PM (#25360817) Homepage Journal

    http://gallery1.demconvention.com/ [demconvention.com]

    Yup, the Democratic National Convention site is Silverlight. The bandwidth isn't quite as impressive as it was while the event was going on. But flip through the site and check out the functionality.

    As someone who has developed a bit with the beta Silverlight tools, I have to say it is an amazing platform. And I'm quite excited about using it in the future.

    -Rick

    • But flip through the site and check out the functionality.

      We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser.

      I'm sorry, but you're making me more interested in what McCain's got to say.

      • I decided to send them some mail, letting them know that they were setting a bad example, and mail to their contact address got stuck in an SNTP look going through smtp-red001.mail.microsoftonline.com.

        Oh my.

  • More links on the topic (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dragonshed ( 206590 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:32PM (#25360873)

    SL Eclipse Tools project
        http://www.eclipse4sl.org/ [eclipse4sl.org]

    MS Press release (interestly enough, it plans linux as a supported platform)
        http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx [microsoft.com]

    Silverlight 2 release is imminent.

  • Why not use a fully open-source toolkit? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by scorp1us ( 235526 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:37PM (#25360933) Journal

    Given that Adobe AIR is based on WebKit, and the OpenSource world has Webkit (Qt has Webkit integrated, but Qt is not required for my suggestion), why don't we just make a fully AIR/Silverlight clone using WebKit and Javascript?

    • Qt+Webkit: [trolltech.com]

      • Both support JS,
      • Are both Open Source (Commercial Qt apps can be linked against the OpenSource version)
      • Both are compilable on just about every platform.
      • Qt provides the ability to embed a Qt custom control into WebKit, and expose it to JS for scripting. You can even use Java with it [trolltech.com] if you're a byte-code purist.

      It seems the Qt+WebKit combo is only in need of convenience functions to make it more appealing.

  • The proper way to woo. (Score:4, Funny)

    by bionicpill ( 970942 ) on Monday October 13, 2008 @03:37PM (#25360935) Homepage
    Everyone knows real developers work on beer, not on Eclipse.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by CallsignBaron ( 1136063 )

      Everyone knows real developers work on beer, not on Eclipse.

      No, real developers live on coffee and they fear the daylight. They may actually get more done during an Eclipse.

  • In addition, Goldfarb said the new Silverlight 2.0 player comes with a cut-down version of Microsoft's .Net runtime. That means that .Net developers -- Microsoft says there are 4 million of them -- can build Silverlight applications purely through .Net.

    So, is this cut-down .NET runtime compatible with the Mono cut-down .NET environment that Moonlight is built on, or not?

  • Wake me up when they support iPhone and WinMo. For that matter, wake me up when they have *Flash* for iPhone :-) Also, I propose a Silverlight interpreter written in Flash. I think they should call it Flashlight.

  • Goldfarb (Score:3, Funny)

    by naasking ( 94116 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `gniksaan'> on Monday October 13, 2008 @05:57PM (#25362587) Homepage

    The latter, said Goldfarb, should make it easier for would-be Silverlight developers."

    I'm glad to see Microsoft's goblin integration program is still going strong.

  • Tag it from now on "WorksForNow" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by symbolset ( 646467 ) on Tuesday October 14, 2008 @01:27AM (#25365615) Journal

    From now until the end of time Microsoft's cross platform adventures should be tagged "Works For Now". As their DRM brand "Plays For Sure" should have been called "Plays For Now", as their "Internet Explorer" languished free of development until a challenger arose, the only thing certain about Microsoft product development is that there will come a day when utility is deprecated to further Microsoft's perceived economic interests. As soon as they perceive that either they have market ownership or that market ownership cannot be achieved they abandon further development. This is not progress.

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