Silverlight On the Way To Linux

Afforess writes "For the past two years Microsoft and Novell have been working on the 'Moonlight' project. It is a runtime library for websites that run Silverlight. It should allow PCs running Linux to view sites that use Siverlight. Betanews reports 'In the next stage of what has turned out to be a more successful project than even its creators envisioned, the public beta of Moonlight — a runtime library for Linux supporting sites that expect Silverlight — is expected within days.' Moonlight 2.0 is already in the works."

Comments

What a surprise... backhanded support

[Anonymous Coward]

While Windows is getting version 2, and the Mac is almost version 2, Linux is almost getting version 1. Awesome job MS.

Re:What a surprise... backhanded support

[Tom]

The GUI people need to start shifting gears...

Been there, done that. The GUI people on the Linux front need to drop dead and make way for people who care about user experience, not self-glorification.

Me, I tried to punch some sense into the Gnome project many years ago. There was a dedicated mailing list for GUI design. On that list, maybe three people had read any UI guidelines at all. Not a single person was an expert in the field. Very few had an understanding that you can not design a GUI in a laboratory without user-testing.

Unless there was a radical shift somewhere - but I don't see any signs of that in the final products - GUI design on Linux is a total and utter failure.

Javascript

[Midnight Thunder]

With what is being achieved with Javascript and dynamic HTML, I see less and less need for technologies such as Flash and Silverlight. The only thing they really have going for them are the development environments. To see some of the games already implemented using plain old Javascript and HTML:

http://www.apple.com/webapps/games/

I think I'll pass

[Bralkein]

I can't say I have much love for Adobe and Flash, and I simply do not trust Microsoft, but if Linux support is going to be a key point-scoring device in the corporate pissing contests of today then I suppose a few good things might come of it. Let battle commence!

I enjoy the web less and less every day

[NobleSavage]

It's a real treat when you find a site that is static html. It's fast, clean, and refreshing. Flash and Ajax have their place, but more often than not they just irritate me. I'm tired of sites that peg my CPU and crash my browser.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, but I'm sure Moonlight will only contribute to web bloat and add to my frustrations. And that is being generous and not bring up that MS is part of the equation.

I just hope this fails to catch on and people forget about it.

Re:can anyone elaborate

[abigsmurf]

http://weblogs.asp.net/jezell/archive/2007/05/03/silverlight-vs-flash-the-developer-story.aspx

Lists the different approach Silverlight takes over flash. It's mostly about making it better for developers than the end user.

Re:you need more than games

[chrish]

Compare the user experience of loading a page with a Java applet vs. one with Flash or Silverlight. With the Java page, your browser is dead to the world while the JVM hauls itself up from the disk like a brontosaurus. With Flash or Silverlight, the control pops up quickly and the app loads.

This is one thing that I've always wondered about... why do .NET apps, even running through Mono, load so much faster than Java apps?

Serious question; I'm not really a fan of Java (although I use Eclipse a lot and I've written a few Java articles for IBM's developerWorks site), but I do like using the right tool for the job, whatever that job might be...