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Flash, Meet Sparkle
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."
Can you see I am serious!
Get out of my way, all of you!
This is no place for loafers.
Join me or die.
Can you do any less?
For lucky best wash, use Mr. Sparkle.
Now I'm gonna need SparkleBlock as well as FlashBlock. More browser plugin bloat.
.. will this expose Windows users to? Will it be as problematic as ActiveX has been, for instance?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
XAML.
... "XAML is a declarative XML-based language optimized for describing graphically rich visual user interfaces, such as those created by Macromedia Flash" ... "This Microsoft Windows article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it."
"the user interface markup language for Windows Vista, the next version of Microsoft Windows."
Does this mean that we are going to see a huge rise in crappy Sparkle menus and animations on every web site?
Or maybe some sweet pop-over Sparkle ads? Microsoft just created their next enemy. Will the IE popup blocker block Sparkle ads? Or will that be a selling point?
The best thing that can possibly come of this is new games. That's the one thing I still enjoy about Flash on occasion.
Sparkle is a UI prototyping tool? Uh, okay. As long as I don't have yet another crappy insecure format to block at my HTTP proxy, that's cool, I guess.
Mr. Sparkle: A joint venture of Matsumura Fishworks and Tamaribuchi Heavy Manufacturing Concern
Isn't this known as WPF now? I was just on channel 9 earlier today and they bleeped out "sparkle" like it was a swear word.
Are there any plans to include support for this technology into Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, Safari, etc.?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
When are the application makers going to start realizing that anything they develop on Microsoft's platform is eventually going to be copied and forced into the collective? Seriously, is there any piece of software running on Windows that Microsoft isn't in the process of making thier own version of?
The more you know, the less you understand.
Thank you, Mister ObSimpsons.
Product Demonstration here
So Sparkle is like a graphic designer's version of Interface Builder for OS X... but "vector based" which means... hmm, Windows users will now get Flash-like wackiness for interfaces?
must... stay... awake...
Yet, here it is, with a name that sounds exactly like it's directly competing with Flash. Along those lines, why Sparkle? Flash sounds cool, but Sparkle sounds...girly.
Otherwise, the concept actually sounds really cool, like the visual component of Visual Studio on steroids. Replacing the windowing interface with purely vector graphics sounds promising, though it also sounds a little too abuseable. Still, this might herald the beginning of an actually innovative M$, seeing that they now have Google and FOSS knocking on its doors.
I wonder if it'll make use of the GPU to do the rendering.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
If "Sparkle" isn't significantly more attractive as a creative tool than Flash, there really will not be any advantage for web developers and advertisers alike to use it. It just means another plug-in that people may or may not have, and advertisers and web developers can't aford this risk, given that IIS is not the dominant web server, and not everyone has IE. It's not going to be an easy road for MS.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
A lot of people have tried to label Sparkle as a Flash killer but it is not. Sparkle is a new way to deal with winforms that allows custom UI design without coders running into the traditional limitations of development platforms. Think of it as a flash front-end to a full Win32 API and data-access. The fear I have is that Windows programs have always had a "consistant" look at feel. However, programs like Winamp back in the day changed the rules. These days more and more applications are starting to forego Microsoft UI guidelines for their own 3l33t designs which can be a pain to learn and a pain to script to. I hope it doesn't happen here but I would certainly, for example, expect a lot of Apple OSX-look knock off apps showing up once Sparkle gets out there.
Anyway, check out the picture gallery if you can't RTFA.
There seems to be a clamor for Flash-like functionality but without Macromedia's proprietary player and tools.
SVG is one alternative that a lot of people seem to like. Scalable Vector Graphics. Supposedly, Firefox/Mozilla will support it soon. Sounds like a great thing.
Then why doesn't Microsoft's Sparkle sound like a great thing too? The language is written in XML (this statement doesn't compute, but works), so it's not like you couldn't program your little game in something like vi or Notepad. Is it because it is Microsoft that everyone is down on it?
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!
But what if support is demanded for it, in a product such as Firefox? I could see that becoming a real possibility. If Firefox wants to gain a large marketshare, then it must appeal to the masses. And, unfortunately, the masses include many people who want to watch Flash videos and play Flash games. Chances are they'll want to do the same with games and videos and such media implemented using this scheme from Microsoft. So a Firefox implementation may be necessary to continue the widespread growth and use of Firefox.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
http://www.t-shirtking.com/graphics/153-00167.jpg
----- Concentrate on promoting more than demoting.
Remember there's an open source Flash player, called GplFlash,. It appeared a few months ago in another slashdot article. However, it's only available via CVS (yet).
Flash, Sparkle, what's next, Twinkle?
I remember in the late '80s / early '90s. I used to get my pr0n (600 baud - thank you)The executable would always say "waiting for sparkle". I do remember that the quality of the video (remember folks this was 286 territory) was very good. Actual video, not pixelated bitmaps.
I wonder...
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion....
No offense, sir, but you seem quite convinced that this will become a major security flaw in Windows Vista.
Does your opinion have any technical merit? Have you inspected the source code to the implementation of this technology? Can you provide clear examples of malicious uses?
Or is your opinion based solely upon the past actions of Microsoft, with regards to similar technology?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Can someone please explain this parent post?
So, according to the video, Sparkle is an editor for Avalon's editor. So, when websites start using this, does that mean that only Vista machines will be able to see them?
There's flash, and now sparkles... I'm sure if I watch too much of these my eyes will get hurt...
... now listen hear boy, what we have here is some real shit.. i'm talking 'sparkle-n-shine' baby... .. i'm say'n MSFT gett'n diggy-with-it.. and show'n off its *bling* big time. .. look out man.. we are talking about some serious corporate pimp'n!
Sparkle?? That is so Ghey!
Straight guys will only use it in the dead of night without anyone present.
Sparkl* and Shin* baby; Spark!e and $hine
- No Sig for you!
... about designing a quality, usable GUI. That's most likely because, like programming, designing a good GUI takes a lot of skill, experience and effort. So this may actually be quite beneficial, as it lets everyone specialize. Programmers write the complex algorithms necessary to power these applications, while the GUI designers can manipulate and form the GUI without needing much effort on behalf of the programmers. Everyone is more efficient this way.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
And then you can use this tool to convert the web based C#/XAML app back to Flash. http://www.xamlon.com/
.exe it has its limitations (disk access, etc -- which requires workarounds like embedding it inside another layer (ie. C# app) and passing messages back and forth).
Hopefully Macrobe will take this as a challenge and drop in some 3d support and copy a few other features into their next version.
Main differences here is Flash is focused on the web - while you can output an
Sparkle is for Desktop apps - and you can output for the web (but will limit your potential audience)
Is SVG dead?
for any Phish fans out there....
Watch the fscking video.
.NET for Avalon, Sparkle is a (even more than a) UI development tool for creating vector based interfaces. The beautiful thing is, everything you create is just a .NET object that can be manipulated by the developer.
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.
Version 2 is only in CVS, but releases of version 1 can be downloaded
In the demo video on the Microsoft Expressions webpage, they mention that the Expression Web Designer "Is a professional design tool to create sophistocated, standards based, websites." Does anybody else see the irony of this? Microsoft doesn't even follow web standards for Internet Explorer!
My sig beat up your sig.
Seriously folks, let's hope the world's web developers steer clear of this. Flash is cross-platform and it's one of the key tools that make the non-Microsoft desktop useful. I know, I know, as a techie you probably hate all those "punch the monkey!" ads, but think of that Linux box you may have set up for your Mom or something. Would she be happy with it if she couldn't play all of those silly cartoons that your aunt emailed to her? These things seem trite to us, but normal users demand them.
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.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
It is strange to see so many comments in this story criticizing Microsoft, even though they are making a commendable, and somewhat innovative product.
It seems like Slashdot has become completely blind to its prejudices, and will criticize Microsoft whatever it does.
Commenting that "Flash and Powerpoint are bad things" is to me indicative of a parochial, extremely narrow-minded worldview; a view that is completely ignorant of half of the world's desires and life-cultures.
If people really think that Microsoft makes crappy products, do you think Bill Gates would have been the richest man in the world for 11 straight years? (And also the biggest philanthropist the world has ever seen?) Can you do that for me please? Why do you think the whole world uses Microsoft products? Do you think that if Microsoft would have used fairer marketing strategies giving fair chance to each competitor, their products would have died out, and the company wiped out because of their low quality products?
This anti-flash, anti-ease-of-use, anti-glamour, anti-aesthetic, anti-comfort, anti-authoritian attitude reminds me of the C.P.Snow divide between the Sciences and Humanities.
I feel the need for our coming together.
I have found a solution to Riemann's Hypothesis, but have run out of spac
If you want to build web applications that have a rich user experience, check out OpenLaszlo. It's based on Flash (which is ubiquitous) and it's open source.
Join Tor today!
Firstly: Direct download. "Cool!" Says I, preferring to download my videos so I can watch them repeatedly and without skipping... "Holy mother of all things sacred! 917Meg! WTF! I thought MS was all hoity toity about their video compression in series 9 WMV"
Secondly: "OK, I'll stream it"... nope, windows media player encountered an error... "Geeeze"!
Has anyone got a recompressed, or lower res version of this video? I can't stream it, and I'll be buggered if I'm going to download 917Meg for one hour of video... man, I downlo... erm, I mean I 'recompress and store my own, legal copies of' movies that come in less than a CD in size, and they look almost identical to DVD quality, why is this so DARN BIG?
...emulating the Vectrex in just 40gb!
What?! No more Flash-based Microsoft Ads?
I mean I so enjoy seeing Microsoft advertise their development tools using Flash based ads on Slashdot!
It just makes me laugh everytime I see one!
Will they now be Sparkle-based?!
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I've been working on flash apps for work. God the networking library sucks ass. Creating a connection returns true or false. True if it succeeds, false if it doesn't. There's absolutely no way to figure out why it didn't work!
Insane. I set policies first with my XMLSocket server, and then with an HTTP server. Doesn't seem to be it and it's driving me nuts. Every other networking library will tell you exactly why it failed. Not Actionscript!.
Fuck macromedia. And fuck Microsoft for killing client-side java!!!
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I've spent the last 2 days on the road talking with people at 53 companies. Dragged along an engineer as part of his training. I'll be out there again tomorrow, and I'm sure that it'll be the same.
Not one person said they liked using Windows. Not one! They hate Windows. They hate Microsofts Client Access Licensing schemes. They hate the viruses, the downtime, the forced upgrades, the patch hell, the crappy products - everything. And they also hate it when they go home. They want OUT!
This is not a slashdot "talking-out-of-my-ass" opinion - this is the reality in the corporate world today. Pissed off doesn't begin to describe it. They feel they've been raped.
Like I said, I've expended the shoe leather, gotten the face time, and this is the reality. Microsoft makes crap. Everyone knows it. Nobody likes it.
There's no need for a "coming together." The world and Microsoft are heading for a divorce.
"Flash, Meet Sparkle" and then linking to an article explaining how it has nothing to do with Flash at all.
Flashing flash flushes sparkling sparkle.
Seriously, the "rich" user experience that we see in most Flash websites really isn't something we need more of. Notice how rich the GMail user experience is, without a drop of Flash? Wonder why Google chose to go the route they did? The vast majority of Flash sites I see only detract from the user experience. The supposedly "rich" user experiences just mean that there's a cool animation as each new content area opens... with a tiny font that I can't resize, with a poorly-contrasting color scheme that I can't override, with annoying non-standard scrollbars, and with form fields that can't I use my browser's auto-complete features on. How is that a richer user experience? Adding eye-candy at the expense of breaking basic usability -- never mind the fact that you're hiding your pages from the search engines -- is not a worth trade-off. Oh, but wait -- I forgot there's music playing in the background, and bloops and echoing clicks when I mouse over the mystery-meat controls. Seriously, there's a place for Flash online -- it's a nice way to add inline audio/video or animations, and there are online Flash-based games that are awesome... but I'm yet to see a single Flash-only website where the user experience was actually better because of Flash.
The UI Designer to coder part at least sounds like what Qt Designer can be used for :)
The rest... wow.
DYWYPI?
I am currently at the Microsoft PDC and I saw the product demoed.
This is a good thing and its tru the possiblity for abuse is great but the same thing can be said for the blink tag, marquees and fonts in the early days of the web.
The demo apps created for Vista are amazing. The power is now gives to user interface designers is (dare I say it again) amazing.
I watched a microsoft dev code up an application during a one hour session that took a basic UI and then refined it through out his session with XAML.
It was an eye opening experience.
Say what you want about Microsoft... say what you want about the Apple OS X vs Microsoft Vista. But I have seen it working. This is revolutionary for us developers. With very little code we are going to be able to create gorgeous applications with a terrific user experience.
Sure some people will go over board...some always seem to do this during a transitional period. But the best apps and UI will surface.
I am looking forward to the next few years and the new types of applications we will have.
Bet this
It's not that hard to write an app that can "skin" itself, or to write a second app that can "skin" an existing app, even a compiled binary. The need provide these facilities at the operating system level just doesn't exist, and opens up a whole new can of worms.
Also, with more and more applications being moved to the server and accessed through a browser, changing the appearance is done once - on the server. Microsoft is scared of this move to server apps, because it makes the underlying platform irrelevant, and this will kill their business model of forced upgrades. They originally thought Java was going to be the vehicle to do this, and this is why they worked so hard to kill Java. What they didn't count on was a combination of javascript, css, and high-speed networks to do the same job.
Sparkle isn't necessary for web apps. It's not necessary for games. Its not necessary for office suites. It's just more "shiny bauble thingee goodness" that doesn't address the issues people want addressed:
- forced upgrade cycles
- client access license ripoff schemes
- patch hell
- the stupidity also known as the registry
- viruses, trojans, and their bastard cousin, spam
- incompatabilities between versions
- the non-compliant IE browser
Before trying to make Vista Sparkle, they should really fix these issues. Otherwise, its not so much Sparkle as it is Turd PolishI banish dirt to the land of wind and ghosts.
I wish people would stop posting those bloody Channel 9 MSDN videos. They're worse than bloody Sun promos! Shut up and show me the eyecandy already, bitches!
fish and pipes
One. Sparkle. All I can think of is Donnie Darko.
Two. Windows only (and probably Apple too). That leaves out a lot of people. Think that Microsoft'll release a Sparkle plugin for Firefox even? It does seem better than Flash though (in theory...) and hopefully people (developers) will demand Linux versions. Also, one of the nice things about Flash is that it's tiny. Will Microsoft be able to deliver in this regard, or will Windows XP users have to download a 50mb player (if they're able to use it at all)?
I'm a grad student studying interactive design, and I'm fairly intrigued about a software package seemingly being marketed toward "interactive designers."
Currently, interactive designers are few and far between. It's difficult to find a -good- graphic designer who understands human behavior and software development.
I know a ton of good developers who can produce ok interfaces (ok as in "ehh", not ok as in "good"); I know a slew of good designers who don't know a string from an array; and I know several HCI gurus who don't understand graphic design / visual communication from a hole in the ground.
So, here are my questions... is Sparkle evidence of Microsoft's foresight? Does Microsoft realize "interactive design" is an emerging discipline? Are they going to cater to new designers who are capable of communicating with developers and contributing toward in initial development. Or, is Sparkle just another attempt at offering staggered babelfish communication between designers and developers who really don't understand each other's jobs?
If it's the latter, I don't know how successful this product is going to be.
This sounds fairly rad, but I'm somewhat pessimistic. After seeing the UIs for Windows Vista(TM) and Word 12, I doubt Microsoft really understands interactive design. How can they understand interactive design if they're not hiring real interactive designers, or at the very least, not incorporating them properly into the development process? My complaints about OS X's Finder pale in comparison to my complaints about those gift wrapped turds.
Man... what I would give for one day in Redmond with executive management.
Personally, I think the next big wave in software development is going to come from interactivity
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Office workers, middle aged engineers, and basically anyone who uses a computer and doesn't know what l33t means... they will die.
They are comfortable with Windows 2k. They know and understand Office 2000. It took them years and years - and now they get it. Office 2003 freaks them out, but they are dealing because once you look past the candy colors, its basically just Office 2000 (you know, liek menu items work like they should, etc)
Office 12, Sparkle?? Holy crap.... all of this is going to PISS PEOPLE OFF. Like, all the hyper smart multi-doctoral engineers that i work with who just want to be able to get email, run their applications... they want fscking MATLAB to run and to make powerpoints - they don't want any of this shit! they dont' WANT totally new UIs! They know the one that they have! They just want the computer to do what they want it to do!
So, instead of just fixing Windows, like Microsoft should be doing - in the sense of, making it so My Mom(TM) doens't always have to reinstall Windows after a virus attack, or after a few months, or requiring her to become a IP security guru...
they're going to give developers the ultimate tool to make consistantly inconsistent UIs, totally inconsistent UIs across various applications, fscking buttons flipping up and over... windows flinging themselves all over the place..?
Fscking genie affect and bouncing icons? people will shit their pants for the good old days of nothing worse than the genie affect and bouncing icons.
Now - throw in ALL that above... and heap on viruses, spyware, MAC-UH-FEE renewals, Windows reinstallations,....
Great gobs of gooseshit.
Good show Microsoft - keep it up. And that comment the geek made in the video?
"we thought of the developer first"
makes me know that some things are as steady as death and taxes...
the day they start thinking about USERS before they think about developers will be the day that i'll be scared of Microsoft.
But all this shit? Go for it. If executed poorly (hey, it could happen), it will do nothing less than scare the shit out of your users... the people i work with... and My Mom, and they will either run to Mac OS X 10.5... or worse.. they'll never give up Windows XP.
If there was a chance in hell that the users were to be thought about, and the UI would be consistent... i'd be amazed.
but this? I forsee evil being released upon the earth never dreamed of... it will make us pine for 1996 websites with flashing text, rainbow paragraph dividers, and parchment backdrops....
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
http://www.yafla.com/dforbes/2005/09/15.html
Sounds a lot like glade. Though glade AFAIK doesn't have 3D UI-components.
Reality check time? Here's some reality for you.
No matter how much they say they hate Microsoft they still don't like anything else well enough to switch.
People bitch about their spouse, kids, friends, and how miserable their life is. But that doesn't mean the current situation is worse than a divorce. There is no glorious rainbow, pot of gold, or greener grass. If there were, they wouldn't be complaining.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
"They feel they've been raped."
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.
What's interesting about your experience is that I've experienced exactly the opposite myself. I suspect this is because I've mostly been around small to medium sized businesses, and you're talking about large corporations. Still...
I currently work for a manufacturer of restaurant equipment. Not counting the folks that actually build the machines, I'd guess we have roughly a hundred employees in the form of executives, engineers, etc. Total Microsoft shop. I am literally the only person with a non-Windows machine-a dual processor G5 Mac. Reportedly, when the head of IT heard that a Mac was going to be brought in, he slammed his fist on his desk and proclaimed that nobody was going to be hired just to maintain one Mac. The folks in the IT dept. then informed me that if anything happened to my machine, they would not help me.
Prior to this, I had worked in a small mom-and-pop advertising company. Roughly between four and eight employees depending on who had left at what time. One computer guy, and all machines were Windows. This guy had been a Mac person, but for some reason converted. It was practically pavlovian. If you mentioned either "Apple" or "Mac" at any time, he'd immediately say "Man, I hate the Mac!". Once he proclaimed that Windows was easier to use and just generally let it be known that the Mac was inferior to any Redmond product. He had no experience with *nix-based systems. We had people come and go for that one, but that's a different story.
While there's hardly and hard research any analysis going on here, my point is that Microsoft seems to have achieved a perfect two-pronged attack. On the one hand, they've won over the small-to-medium businesses who pay out little per business, but are more numerous, and they've locked in the larger corporations who are fewer in number, but pay much more. The corporations hate the lock-in, but are constrained by a number of factors, not the least of which is previously trained admins coming up from the smaller business ranks.
As I stated, no hard research and analysis, but if it were true, it'd be pretty damn impressive. From a business standpoint at least.
--Erik
eXtinguish All MarkUp Liberty
1) Sparkle is not a technology. Sparkle is the codename for an application. Get it right.
2) The technology is Windows Presentation Foundation (formally codenamed Avalon).
3) It is not a flash killer. It is true that you can host Avalon applications in a web browser, and they will interact with the back and forward buttons of a web browser. It is true that Microsoft is touting this as a high-end replacement for HTML (as far as I can tell).
4) Although details are sketchy, Microsoft has announced a royalty free OPEN technology called Windows Presentation Foundation / Everywhere. This means that you can run these applications in ANY web browser on ANY platform.
formerly known as VRML
Sparkle is vector based XAML system for doing applications that may have traditionaly been done in flash
It's primarly to do Windows apps though (to aid in developing for the new Windows Graphics Framework model). I rarely see Flash used for Windows application development. Sure, it happens, but far from often.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Is there the need for yet another XML format when for describing vectorial web interfaces SVG does a very good job? Oh, wait, this is Microsoft we are talking about. And they are really commited to screwing^H^H^H^H^H^H tandards.
The only problems with SVG were the lack of development tools and browser support, and the second is starting to fade away quickly. So, I would suggest everyone interested in evading Microsoft's lock-in to have a look at the existing tools, and maybe lend us a hand.
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
OK, I'll reply to my own post... I just saw the demo video.... that tool is RAD.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
The internet has grown and thrived thanks to open standards. Anyone (capable) person can write a mail reader or a web server and a lot of them have done just that. That's why I can write this words while sitting on a machine filled with free code implementing the standards. HTML, HTTP TCP/IP. All of them free and open.
/picz
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.
------- Look mum! I have posted another Slashdot comment! --------
How many MS products are you using on a regular basis?
Now think about the poor bastards that HAVE to use ALL of them EVERY DAY, for work. Remember about FOXPRO? FOXPRO included.
Parent was probably not refering only to this however. The problem is with their pricing and once-every-two-years-upgrade policies. Finnancially this IS rapeing.
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
All the proprietariness of Flash with all the inefficiencies of XML. What more could you ask for?
I think these are last-gasp battles; if the time is right for something like XAML, then SVG will take over.
People bitch about their spouse, kids, friends, and how miserable their life is. But that doesn't mean the current situation is worse than a divorce. There is no glorious rainbow, pot of gold, or greener grass. If there were, they wouldn't be complaining.
Couldnt agree more.
I have found a solution to Riemann's Hypothesis, but have run out of spac
Okay, enough of the mis-directed Flash-bashing. Is this just a nerd thing...the cool geeks on /. seem to hate Flash, so I hate it too!
a in-application for the sake of OOP.
I mean really, do you blame photoshop every time you see a bad image? Video cameras for bad commercials? Shit, lets blame guns for war and give politicians a break!
Flash is a powerful, relatively easy tool to use for developing everything from annoying ads to cool, slick, easy-to-use web applications and games. That, unfortunately, means that many clueless usability-impaired newbies can use Flash to create equally useless splash screens and seizure-inducing Ads. Maybe they should make Flash more like MIA or Lightwave, eh? Then only the smart, nerdy types could use it.
Oh, and from what I've read Sparkle doesn't 'describe' the objects in XML as far as the Forms/UI goes, it uses XML to position, size, and adjust an object's attributes. XML files like that are like 5-10K for most forms. It isn't just a big document of vector descriptions...(take a look at Macromedia Flex if you want to see what they are trying to do)...so settle down on the 'my god the files will be huge' melodrama. It'll suck just fine being a Microsoft product without all the misaligned conjecture and assumptions.
Oh, and since this is probably going to get modded into oblivion by some pissed off Flash-hater, I'll just add that OpenLazlo sucks...just what we need, learn yet another task-specific language to develop a code-embedded-in-design-godforsaken-mess-to-maint
There, done bitching, go on about your business.
Honestly, I want my desktop to spin and flip around and resize and all this stuff, and I want all that data binding too, but I want it how I want it, and it should be simple. They need to figure out how to make all those dev tools integrated into the real-time OS. This is what a computer is for: here is my data, here is how I want to look at it. Maybe in that sense, an application is just a limited set of views for a fixed data model. Sure, there's the report view and the list view and the details view, but those aren't good enough, and they're really lame too.
For instance, the Trillian skin I downloaded is close to what I want, but even better now that I edited it.
If Microsoft hasn't brought the user into this, then it is just a game interface. I've always found game menus way more annoying than application menus.
Will Vista come with an XBox controller?
There's obviously people who are very happy with the products. Or they wouldn't be where they are. But that doesn't mean there isn't a change in the industry.
I work in a large enterprise. We have people who are absolute Microsoft fanboys (and outright zealots in some cases). We have folks who are indifferent. We have folks who range from dislike to absolute hate of the company and anything it produces. The "dislike" column has been increasing over the years. In fact, it's become a rather popular notion.
So hey - if it's not felt in your neck of the woods, fair enough. Glad you're doing fine over there. It either means you're avoiding some hassle or missing out. Time will tell.
And this plugin will be integrated in their browser and will not be availabel on other platforms. They will shove it down everyone's throat by giving it away to their existing clients in their best attempt yet to hit three birds with one stone! 1. Only IE - win browser war 2. Only Windows - trash other desktop 3. Hurt Adobe - to hurt adobe - ooh Adobe scare MS!! So wip out yer tinfoil hats my friends, it's time to get paranoid about Mickeysoft again!!!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
I don't actually know anyone who is "happy with the products." I know people who think that "all computers suck." I know people who look at it like going to the dentist. I don't think there actually are microsoft fanboys who are users. I know mac fanboys who are users. Then again, I don't know of *any* linux or bsd users who are just users...
"Flash, Meet Sparkle" and then linking to an article explaining how it has nothing to do with Flash at all.
This is a geek site correct? So what the editors are doing is repeating the introduction of Arts History Major (Flash) to CompSci Major (Sparkle) who rapidly discover they have nothing in common and meaningless sex is very unlikely to happen.
This would of course require the Slashdot editors to realise the Irony is different to "goldy" and doesn't mean "like iron".
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Out here in the real world, real people don't want animations in their browsers. Real people in the real world surf the web to get information. Information = text. Not bouncing balls, not wiggling cartoon fish, not jumping animated dogs...not banners floating across the screen, not worthless time-wasting eye candy.
/-/2GQMX18LRM17M
In the real world, real people want web pages to load FAST. In the real world, around half the web surfers in America still have dialup. In the real world, studies show the average web surfer scans a web page for 10 seconds MAX, then moves on. These remain well documented facts, as thoroughly demonstrated as the roundness of the earth or the existence of the electron.
(We now pause for the usual knee-jerk vituperation from slashdotters: "Have you ever _seen_ a Flash animation?" "You've never even used a computer, have you, fool?" "You obviously know nothing about [fill in arrogant boast + latest buzzword]." Ad nauseum. Finished drooling mindless folly, slashdotters? Good. Let's continue.)
"Most net-surfers use a dial-up connection, and the average time to load a page should be no longer than 5 seconds."
http://www.pageresource.com/zine/des03.htm
"There's a funny thing about web surfers - they are an impatient lot. If they have to wait more than ten seconds for a page to load they have a tendency to leave the site."
http://www.grandallwebdesign.com/faq.htm
"Readers scan a site for only about 10 seconds before they move on."
govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/papers/bkgrd/c hapter4.html
"You have 10 seconds, on average, to hook that Web surfer."
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display
(We now pause for a cockroach-swarm of unemployed 19-year-old slashdotters to explain in frenzied detail why they are far more expert at web design than the most respected authorities in the field. Finished gibbering drivel, slashdotters? Good. Let's continue.)
Flash means you wait. You get a cup of coffee. Animation's still loading. So you wait some more. You cook dinner. Animation's still loading. You eat dinner. Animation's still loading. You wait. And you wait. And you wait.
Eventually, you give up waiting for that worthless useless pointless Flash animation to load and you leave for another website. That's what Flash does for you. It's eyeball repellant. You include it in your website if you want your web-based effort to fail.
(We now pause for the usual hysterical lies from slashdotters: "You need to grow a brain," "Shoo, troll," "Mod this psycho down," ad nauseum. Finished with your tantrums, infants? Good. Let's continue.)
I'll wait for a linux distro to download -- that's worth waiting for. Took 5 hours to download Damn Small Linux on my dialup connection, but well worth the time. I *won't* wait for a goddamn animation of a barking dog to download just so I can enter a Flash portal to the next webpage. Neither will anyone else with a brain.
(We now pause for a lynch mob of slashdotters to humiliate themselves by denying the obvious: "What about flickr, fool?" "Yeah, the web is for blind people," "[expletive deleted -- and misspelled]." Finished shrieking hysterical McCarthy-style smears, slashdotters? Good. Let's continue.)
"Almost everything I want from the web is Text and most of the graphics are useless
eye-candy."
www.webservertalk.com/archive235-2004-12-660211.ht ml
"Most content on the web is text."
ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/04/0444202&t id=95
"Elaborate graphics and complex designs quickly become useless `eye candy' to many users."
www.charityvillage.com/cv/research/rofr6.html
Sparkle = Flash on crack. Both are worthless, pointless, useless, time-wasting garbage. The web = text + numbers, everything else on the net is time-wasting junk.
Bored under
That is interesting.
It reminds me of my days working for MS as a sales support engineer.
All the customers we visited hated Windows too. All of them, every single one, said Word Perfect would be their only choice for a word processor forever and none of them would ever buy Windows.
WTF happened?
Not trolling here, this is true real life. How can everyone hate something so much and yet, when the decision time comes there is not statistically one single competing product?
Just to be different than your current customers, I watched the Sparkle video and I can tell you I am excited about application development for the first time since the apps in HTML crap phase we've been in for 5 years. The only hate I have is the fact that it is at least a year away.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
Apple, on proprietary and expensive and underpowered hardware with few peripherals and software ?
;-)
Linux, which I have failed for 2 years to get running on any of my PCs ( 6 tries total, giving up after 10 hours max)
MS deserves some of the blame, especially on security, but ease of use and features are quite a step ahead on MS vs everything else. Well, except IE
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
How could he have experienced Mac without *nix? Has he been living under a rock for the last 5 years?
"face time"?
get off my fucking internet.
And take your lies and exaggerations with you.
That is true. However using something because it's the lesser evil does not mean that you like it. The OP claimed that popularity of MS products stems from the fact that people like them.
"Microsoft makes crap. Everyone knows it. Nobody likes it."
*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.
You immediately equated Sparkle (what a dumb name) to Flash eye candy which suggests you didn't read anything about this stuff. True, in the wrong hands Sparkle (or, Expression Interactive Designer as I would call it) has the potential to improve our lives like the Blink and Scroll tags so popular in the early years of HTML. But in the right hands it has the potential to help developers WITH designers help to create much better applications. Lets face it, most developers have the design sense of a rock. They should rightly focus on programming logic/code. Most designers have the programming skills of a rock. Expression/Sparkle makes it possible for each person to focus on what they do best. Think of it as "code behind" where the presentation layer is mostly separate from the plumbing code. I'm not a Flash developer but from what I know from friends, it's extremely difficult to write real applications in Flash. That must be why the Flash specialty developers charge so much? Love 'em or hate 'em, Microsoft is usually pretty good at making things easier and I would expect Expression/Sparkle to do the same thing for rich 2D adn 3D applications. Humbly...
At the I dismissed Robert Cringley's idea that Microsoft would try to kill html to take over the web as yet another conspiracy theory. Now I'm not so sure. This really does look like yet another attempt by Microsoft to kill the competition by undermining web standards with one that no one can really emulate.
.Net library, thereby crippling any open version of C#. It looks like they'll do the same with XAML in order to make sure that the only place where it runs with full support is on Windows with IE.
What enforces that opinion is your comment that Microsoft will make an OPEN, yet LIMITED spec version freely available. Microsoft added another trick to its books when it got C# ECMA certified but obviously didn't do the same for the
That said, it looks like a brilliant technology.
Well explained. I expect our friend here is a little wound up in the intricacies of his own FUD.
Why would that make you laugh? Microsoft uses lots of technlogy from other companies. They use Siebel for their CRM system. They use SAP for their HR/Finance system. Adobe/Macromedia is one of the biggest ISV's for Windows. Why wouldn't they use Flash? Grow up.
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.
Yes it is a Flash killer
/. about this Rich Internet App topic. Reducing flash to small adds and Sparkle to vaporware is just unprofessional.
There has been a lot of misconceptions on both Flash and Sparkle either.
1- since Flash MX 2004, Macromedia has tried to push very hard Flash to be used for application development, on the Web but also on the desktop with Flash Central
2- The main point is finally to separate two roles in app dev. To have a totally declarative tool to design UI so the designers can work wthout coding and be able to connect thoses UI to the app logic.
3- Both product occupy the same market slot call Rich Internet Apps. They are definitly competitors and given the MS market share, the battle will be for real.
Rich Internet Apps is definitly the future for a whole class of application inbetween Web sites and desktop apps.
Regading free software format such as SVG, they will eventually find their way but they have years of improvement ahead to match Flash or Sparkle in the following areas:
- integration between code and visual side
- development tools to ease UI design : I do not believe that designers are going to edit SVG files using VI...
- client/server primitives (XmlHttpRequest is NOT the ULTIMATE answer man !)
I am so puzzled by the amount of ignorance displayed on
Emmanuel BUU
A lot of the businesses I've talked to are hungry for information - when I tell them that I've got a beta program for their business that doesn't require Windows, their ears just perk right up.
So, yeah, Microsoft is dying, and I'm doing my little part to help it along.
Since you are so smart, maybe you can also explain why we have to reboot our servers at work running w2k3 almost every single day and our Linux servers maybe once every year.
Where do you want to go, toady ?
Guess you didn't RTFA - Sparkle is NOT just for the web. It gives control to the whole UI of the host machine.
Guess you didn't RTFA or my post. I wrote "web-based Sparkle stuff". There is a security model, web-based usages of Sparkle will be sandboxed and will not have such sweeping controls.
Really, don't blame the system admins for something that is flawed by design and intent.
Because you're a bunch of fucking idiots?
Oh and can I have the IP addresses of your Linux servers please?
Well I hope you enjoyed your rant.
Fact is, MS make good (e.g. SQL Server, Exchange), middling (e.g. Windows) and bad (e.g. IE) products.
Some of their products are truly excellent (Excel, Visual Studio) and nothing really comes close to them.
As a developer (Win and *nix) I do actually like using Windows and find it productive. Which must make me a total odd ball I guess.
Just remove the (developing) UI. Turn the program into a Actionscript compiler.
That way the clueless kid will stop making crap, and us real developers can still program for real, plus not suffering from all that "flash sucks" mantra. (and yes. the UI is not necessary, even for graphics and images)
That, and shot the stupid clients in the forehead.
YOU need a better admin. "close to" 99% is major suckage for an enterprise system and would simply not be acceptable in any major setting. Hell, I was part of a group that built 99.999% uptime servers on Windows NT 4 back in 1998. And THAT was an uphill battle convincing large mobile phone telcos to switch from UNIX where they typically had *zero* downtime. If we had 99% uptime we'd been dead and gone looong before MS bought us.
One reboot later and the server is back in production. Hell? Not more than applying a patch for any other OS.
Um, you really have no idea how to manage a real enterprise class system, do you? Very, very few patches in the UNIX world need full system reboots. The vast majority of them merely require restarting the affected application since they are not integrated into the OS in interesting and illegal ways but kept separate from the kernel.
Hell, I currently run a dinky little one-man webhosting and consulting biz on the side with no hotswap server redundancy and *I* have way better than 99% uptime since I switched from Win2k on the servers to Linux. Only downtime I have had the last four years has been planned downtime for hardware upgrades (mostly adding disk to the fileserver) which is maybe all of ten minutes per year, total. When I ran Win2k, the fucker had to be constantly rebooted after patches, hung spontaneously sometimes just for fun and finally ate my file system. That's when I switched and I have never looked back.
Money for nothing, pix for free
While MS is moving more towards applications becoming web services, XAML should not be considered a web only technology, and not simply a Flash competitor. For regular desktop applictions, it is proving to be an ideal UI tool as well, taking a lot of the monotony out of UI coding for desktop applications and finally allowing more expressive and innovative UI designs. Desktop applications are finaly moving to the concept of "drawing" the UI in Photoshop or Acrylic and then adding functionality to it like when doing web pages.
Anways, you can say what you want about Longhorn/Vista the OS, but I am really excited about the next generation of web/software development tools MS is developing. If there is ONE thing MS does well, that is they develop good tools for software development. I think quite honestly that it is because of a strong development foundation that MS is the dominant OS on the market. Linux tools are still immature and klunky to code with (no solid GUI/RAD developer system), and Apple's is trying desperately to duplicate Visual Studio with XCode (but failing miserably). As a result, the software library for Windows is 2 - 10 times larger then that of Linux or Mac (not saying all this software is GOOD), it gives users more choice.
MS's new products Acrylic, Sparkle, and Quartz, while targetted as web design tools, should make application development easier, as they have finally separated the GUI front end from the back end code. In fact, it is easy to develop an application for both web and desktop at the same time and maintain consistency unlike any existing tool (except perhaps Java).
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
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.
A virus could be the fault of a sloppy sysadmin, but then again, it is the fault of Microsoft that they have left so many holes in the OS for viruses to attack through. Folks who know what's going on also dislike their habit of ignoring secuirity problems, and the insistence of people like you to rely on third party apps to keep the OS secure.
To me, it is absolutely unforgivable that a vendor that pays so much lip service to security does such a poor job implementing it, and that the best response they can come up with is to buy more software.
Yes, the XP SP2 firewall is an improvement over the "firewall" that was in previous versions. But it still leaves a number of ports open (without the possibility of closing them), will not allow you to prevent certain apps from calling out (why, pray tell, does my printer need an internet connection?), and tends to screw things up when run concurrently with another software firewall (though Clippy will warn you regularly about it).
But this still doesn't address the problem that MS software was not built with security in mind (like by separating root and user space), and that security (like networking in MS) is something tacked on, not a foundation. It's rather like putting a shiny new padlock on a screen door.
What really bugs me is that MS has been singing the security song for years now, but when I buy a new MS PC, I also need a hardware firewall, a sofware firewall, and an AV package, all at additional expense, and that if I make a mistake and get my box rooted then it's my fault. This attitude is, frankly, intolerable.
forced upgrades: does somebody from Microsoft stands behind you with a baseballbat, threatening to smack you silly if you don't upgrade?
Effectively, yes. See, if you have a large deployment of Win 2k or NT 4 boxes (there are still plenty of the latter) MS will no longer provide technical support or security updates, nor will they provide the means for people to do the patches themsevles. If you get hit, you're SOL, which for a business is as effective as a baseball bat upside the head.
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.
Normal users notice this every time a balloon pops up telling them they need to download critical updates (which seems to happen with alarming frequency), telling them that the updates are downloaded and need to be installed, and that the updates are intalled and the PC needs to be restarted. This interrupts the flow of work, and is one of the most common peeves among people I work with.
This also ignores all the TSR update apps that every single piece of sofware on MS wants to install these days. My printer works. It doesn't need an update, and I don't need a background process to make sure it doesn't need an update.
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.
Patch hell? See above. I've never had to reboot Linux because of a patch, meaning not having to take a server off-line. Plus the patches are much more infrequent, and it's up to me when and how they get applied. This is because *NIX systems have security (and networking) built into the core of the OS, not as an afterthought. That, my friend, is quite a bit more.
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 su
"However, today, a 700MHz P3 made in 1999 is still a very useful computer for the typical things most users do (surf the web, write letters, email - that kind of thing)."
The problem with your argument is the implicit assumption that the "typical user" is some kind of constant over time. Let alone the fact that natural deviations amoungst "typical users" mean that a "typical" PC will no longer serve their needs.
Yeah, and my dentist really likes software and likes to talk about software while he is drilling for oil in my mouth.
viruses: fault of a sys/net-admin. It's no big deal installing a good antivirus, even network-wide.
So let me get this straight... In order to use some expensive tool you bought, you need to buy another expensive tool to fix the problems with it?
Let's not even get into the fact that anti-virus programs just plain don't solve to problem.... Even neglecting that, that's still rediculous.
Anyways, we have upgrades all the time. The only persons who complain (if you can call it that) are the sysadmins
What about the guy with the checkbook?
But the reality is, that (most) MS products are well supported
Oh, I get it. Your whole post was one huge sarcastic joke. I get it now! Very funny.
"Name any one of those things that doubles in power every 18 months."
Ummm, let's not confuse raw clock speed with changes in architectural design. Computer architectures do not even change every 18 months, to speak less of doubling in power every 18 months.
But I happen to agree with him.
(Sorry to troll so badly, but I just had to say it.)
Open like .NET is open... bullshit...
Pissed off doesn't begin to describe it. They feel they've been raped.
Have you ever been raped? Feeling like you've been mugged is not the same as feeling raped. Feeling extorted is not the same. Feeling like you've been abducted or taken hostage is not the same. Cheated, deceived, robbed, mocked, publicly embarrassed... None of these are the same.
Please don't trivialize something so horrible.
How could he have experienced Mac without *nix? Has he been living under a rock for the last 5 years?
This was between 2003 and 2004. Apple had only begun proving itself with OS X. That wouldn't have mattered, though. This guy was so completely within the Windows mindset, he wouldn't have noticed that OS X had a Unix underpinning.
We had received our first Linux box sometime in late 2003. We had to get contractors to come in because he couldn't figure out the command line (when he learned about the "apropos" command, he thought it was a really neat idea).
I don't think he ever really learned command-line Unix. We just kept bringing in people one at a time to take care of the Linux box. He really wanted to be more of a manager; he didn't want to know how to do it, he just wanted to be able to tell people what to do. Unfortunately, although I left in mid-2004, I'd wager it's still just him maintaining everything with some poor guy ocassionally brought in to maintain the Linux box.
--Erik
How much security upgrade support can you get for 5-year-old builds of Linux? Or would the community give the response, "that vulnerability has been fixed, upgrade to a current build"?
I don't hear many people complaining that they can't get security updates for Win 3.1 -- at some point companies/communities have to stop supporting old builds and focus on newer builds and future builds. Not many Autozone stores carry Model-T parts...
It gets worse! No one thought of SSH! Oh well at least it explains why he thought windows was great: he was simply ignorant.
Loathing Microsoft, their products, and what they're doing to our culture is most certainly not a "Slashdot-only" perspective. Whenever I get someone who says to me "Powerpoint is a good thing", I like to forward them to The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation. (Trust me, you will laugh, but you may also cry.)
This was not written by a Microsoft-hater, but rather by someone who fears the ill-effects of what software like Powerpoint is doing to human communication, and how it's shaping our thoughts. I strongly suggest reading his why did I do this? article, too.
John
so either:
A: You should look at a dictionary, rape doesn't just mean forced sex.
B: insert ubiquitous, "um, yeah, welcome to slashdot."
C: see B.
Seriously though, by definiton of majority use, MS is definitely the most popular. A lot of people don't like it, I don't like it, but there it is. Personally (and totally anecdotally) the only people I know that don't have a more than general dislike for MS/Windows are those that either don't use computers or haven't used anything else regularly (possibly looked at Mac or Unix, but never used them long enough to get comfortable). This indicates to me that MS may wain, but people generally don't like change and I certainly wouldn't give any odds on it happening fast.
A lot of people I knew who were Mac zealots in the early 90s jumped to Windows between 1995 and 1997 because, even with the frequently crappy Windows 95 (B was alright, mostly), the software and hardware were leagues ahead of anything the Mac could offer. This is around the same time that Apple was consistently shooting itself, between cripply PowerPCs, mediocre OS releases, Appletalk, the Newton (ugh), and finally the weak G3 launch. I think they were actually near or at bankruptcy for a while in there. Prior to that point (say 1990-1994), the situation was exactly the opposite, and software and hardware were leagues ahead on the Mac side.
Most of those people, myself included, never went back and don't deal with Macs now. As 9X problems got worse in the late 90s, people ended up leaving for NT (which was getting multimedia service packs around the same time) or Linux (which was just starting to get usable). I went to NT, then 2000, which I love (and still use). I see nothing that appeals to me on the Mac now.
That said, CALs and 'license servers' make me very angry, even in the small bit I deal with them. If I was a large enterprise, they would probably be enough to drive me to Linux, or at least heavily invest in creating better applications for it, to prepare for a migration.
I think that the Free Software movement should respond to this by releasing Glimmer (GNU LIne-oriented MultiMEdia Representation). It'd work like Flash and Sparkle, only be based on Scheme and Cairo, and would allow the faithful Linux Jedi to see k3wl animations on their community websites.
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
That's one big difference. Built-in forced upgrades for everyone 4 EVAR!
Look at some similarities to how cars and code are built
- Design prototypes (cars and code)
- Check that your design meets or exceeds all applicable standards (works for cars, works for code, except, for some reason, for Microsoft)
- Test your prototype in typical as well as extreme use
- Get feedback from focus groups, test users, etc (again, cars or software, its all the same)
- Simplify the design so as to reduce costs (in cars, cost of parts, in code, cost of bugs from spaghetti, etc)
- Collect metrics on flaws/failures
- Institute training programs so that there are fewer flaws in the final product (you can train the guy on the shop floor at the assembly plant, just as you can train your coder to be more alert to buffer overruns)
- Use pre-assembled, tested, rated components so as to reduce human error (sub-assemblies on a car, libraries in code)
- Let the worker have the right to pull the chain if there is a problem (on the assembly line, the worker can halt the line - in coding, we should likewise give the coder the right to say "nope - this is NOT ready for public consumption")
- Concrete targets for defect rates
There's a lot more similarity than you'd think at first glance.There is no such thing as a "bug" in the code. It's not something that "crept in on its own". It's a manufactured error. You or someone else had to actually create that error. You made it. That's what "manufacture" means.
So, you manufacture (make) code, just as you manufacture (make) cars. And when you make errors in either, security sufers - both the car and the code can crash.
The only difference is that Microsoft hides behind a bogus eula to limit their liability. All it takes is one user to win consequential damages (as opposed to the greater of $5 or the cost of the program), and the jig is up.
I know in C++ it's easy to crash the machine by trying to write to memory that isn't being used by your program, and that since you've got direct control over certain resources you can do just about anything including overwrite other programs' memory. Wouldn't this "Sparkle" also give the programmer the same amount of control? I know I certainly don't want some stupid ad or some game to have this much control over my PC.
www.linuxpenguin.net
Perhaps I missed something, but the ability to "return" opened software is often rather minimal from my experience, this to discourage an old fashioned use of a store like a software library. Implication of the above --> The Software Distributors Store policy would then be in control of whether the EULA is valid or not? Or is the manufacturer going to refund the software cost directly. Or are stores not accepting returns themselves breaking a law
I'm sure its just a coincidence that sparkle comes up if you do a Thesaurus search for flash.
If you've ever developed a GUI app before, watch the Sparkle Demo given by the developers. I mean it. I'm a Linux guy who just bought a Mac (which I love), but goddamnit is Sparkle cool fucking shit. Dangerous as all get-out in terms of UI guidelines, but really cool.
I'm serious - watch the video. This one product is going to change the look of GUI apps for years to come.
VG.net is a vector graphics UI designer, already integrated in Visual Studio .net. It is more component-oriented.
http://www.vgdotnet.com/