Slashdot Mirror
Silverlight Developers Rally Against Windows 8
aesoteric writes "A legion of Silverlight developers have threatened revolt after Microsoft made no mention of Silverlight or .Net in the vendor's brief video preview for its upcoming Windows 8 operating system. Developers expressed fears Microsoft might let their investment in skills 'die on the vine' as Redmond finally embraces open standards. Microsoft, for their part, have told developers they can't say more until September."
A much better headline.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
...there's a legion of silverlight developers.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
I know Silverlight is a running joke on /., and everyone here hates it, but I work at a .NET shop and we used Silverlight to create a product. Now, you may think that's insane, but what we wanted to deliver was a very rich user experience over the web that was cross platform. Furthermore, clients would install the plug-in after purchasing, so it's not like proliferation of the plug-in mattered. As well, the decision on technology was made over 2 years ago, and back then HTML5 was but a whisper, and Flash was still the big thing TM for interactive "web applications."
As I said, since we're a .NET shop, Silverlight was a really great alternative to Flash. Furthermore, if you haven't worked with Silverlight or WPF, you're really missing out on an amazing development experience.
Now, I completely agree with the mentality that plug-ins are stupid. We only did it this way because we sell a product; we don't put our stuff online to try and shove the plug-in down everyone's throat. And at the end of the day, the message from Microsoft was that Silverlight will be everywhere "in the future," so we hoped we could hit all platforms with a rich product without doing any porting.
And now this, the latest in a long steady stream of screw-overs. They have seriously broken their promise to the developer community. While I'm happy they embraced HTML5 so strongly, they should just admit that they fucked up with Silverlight and hung the devoted developer community that exists out to dry. This was a low move from a company that previously has a great track record with developers, and I'm very unhappy with how they handled this.
And yes, I fully expected to be modded down for just using Silverlight to make anything.
So these developers are crying because they invested in a technology that's becoming obsolete? What else is new?
I've got way more dead technologies under my belt than I have active ones. It's the price you pay for being in the computer industry -- some of the skills you pick up will never be used again. Hopefully you learn some techniques from working with those tools that will carry over to future projects, but as long as you got a functional project out the door and in the hands of the users, what difference does it make whether you get to use the tools again?
Then again, I enjoy learning new technologies. I don't expect to be doing the same-old, same-old for years, much less decades. And guess what? I've never learned a tool without learning some skills that did apply down the road.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
People getting burned for choosing Microsoft? How can someone not see that coming after two decades of Microsoft history is beyond me.
C'mon does everyone instantly forget how Microsoft operates each time something new comes out? They come out with something, it hangs around for a few years and poof it's gone, just like Bob. It's freakin' groundhog day, the only thing that changes is the name of the latest MS fad.
It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has left developers (and customers!) out in the cold. They have a reputation for backwards compatibility, but they only live up to that reputation when it gives them money.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Oh please.
Seriously? Microsoft is blowing off Silverlight and .NET for Windows 8?
Is this some sort of Slashdot Fantasy?
The premise of this "story" is so outside the realms of reality, it's hard to take seriously, and I start to wonder about the motives of the submitter.
Again, seriously? Microsoft is blowing off Silverlight and .NET for Windows 8?
Get off the CRACK.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
My bet is that Silverlight isnt going anywhere anytime soon - Microsoft are still attempting to get a successful smartphone out the door. As long as they're focused on WP7, they'll continue to make investments in Silverlight to try and win developers for both platforms.
Microsoft will soon announce that they will start do all inhouse development in HTML5 and Javascript. The next version of Microsoft Office will be written completely in HTML5 and Javascript! SQL Server and Exchange Server will also be ported to HTML5 and Javascript. Microsoft will embrace standards in a way that will shock you!
Developers expressed fears Microsoft might let their investment in skills "die on the vine"
If your skill as a programmer is entirely based on what is actually a rather simple platform, you have bigger problems ahead of you than Silverlight dying.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
seriously...
the only reason why they can port office is because of .NET and the CLR
silverlight is kind of dead no matter how much noise people make because realistically you get a better reach if you either do things natively like C# or use javascipt and html
(ask yourself this how many mobile users are you turning away if you have a website that has to use silverlight... look around you... would it not be better to engage the users on their mobile devices...)
regards
John Jones
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
Who didn't know that crap was gonna be a flop? I mean in the 2010s who the hell would waste their time on some trailing edge Microsoft crap...
LOL @ fools who thought that a new product, albeit one from an industry giant like Microsoft, was automatically good and would be well supported.
Almost everything new Microsoft attempts flounders in the market. Why would you partner with them?
.NET apps and Silverlight apps will run very well on ARM processors, unlike code compiled to x86 or x86-64. .NET is used on Xbox 360 also, and it's PowerPC.
And Microsoft will be thrilled to have every app they can which they can claim actually works on ARM Windows as well as x86 Windows.
I think these guys are making incorrect assumptions.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Whaaaaaa! I spent half a fortune on your audits and courses and went into dept, and now you tell me the Thetans are a scam and we should go worship Jeebus?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Silverlight came very late to the internet party. And it came here as an obvious attempt to usurp flash. However, Flash had already been upstaged, somewhat by Javascript and what people call AJAX (thanks jQuery, mochikit, scriptaculus, yui and others).
I'm not 100% sure on this but don't you have to use .NET to work with Silverlight. Anyone who writes HTML, CSS or Javascript code will have a bad taste for how .NET's WebControls generate code. Basically, the code is generated based on discovered browsers that Microsoft acknowledges.
To see for yourself, try to browse a .NET site with Galeon, or Epiphany? Basic things like links and buttons don't work. Debian had to put the words "like Firefox" in the User-Agent string for Iceweasel partly because of this stupid type of browser detection.
Then there's the fact that it always costs less to host on anything but Windows. It also costs less to develop for other platforms as well (e.g. Eclipse is cheaper than Visual Studio).
We already had javascript, actionscript, html and ways to communicate between them. Okay, so flash isn't perfect. Did you (the legion of Silverlight developers), really think that Microsoft could have done better at a cross-platform web-based interactivity player than Macromedia? Forget Adobe, they bought the DJ to get into the club.
I mean seriously, do you remember Microsoft Java from back in the days when applets were popular?
If you ask me, the only good things Microsoft makes (considering their wealth and influence) are keyboard, mouse and xbox.
Maybe just because they mentioned a new feature, the old stuff is not going away? I know, sounds crazy.
After all, they didn't mention NTFS in the demo, and ZOMG that means that Windows 8 will use FAT32, right?
Someone hand that man a cigar, he identified why Silverlight was a Dodo from the start.
I mean, imagine this: You're responsible for creating a webpage with some "flashy" content. Will you use Flash or Silverlight? One is supported on "all" platforms, the other one only on Windows. Development cost/time is roughly the same for both. Question for 100: Will you choose the technology that runs on all platforms or the one that runs only on Windows?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I only use silverlight for netflix, but netflix is great. Flash on the other hand crashes and causes my 64bit computer to go crazy from time to time.
For me, there is no comparison in terms of which is better. But I'm just the end user.
Now I know how Lisp programmers feel.
Err, wrong on that mark - Silverlight runs on a Mac too, and on browsers other than IE. It's a fairly straightforward plugin to install.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
I use Silverlight in Firefox on my Mac and it works just fine.
Gone!
Dot Net and Silverlight are better than Java and Dot Net respectively, but they are technologies of Microsoft. Microsoft's 30+ year history has repeatedly shown that there are consequences to trusting Microsoft. So, Android and Flash are going to win out. Just like X11 beat out NeWS.
The reality of what happens for the web developer.
Microsoft added jquery to visual studio as a result of the feedback from developers when they tried to test market silverlight, and it was clear that most developers viewed silverlight as flash without the existing body of work, and you probably wouldn't create new stuff in either of them if you had a choice.
I don't know about Silverlight, but .NET is not going anywhere. They've built up an armada of C# developers on the Windows platform. Seeing as C# is pretty much tied to the CLR, there isn't a chance in hell they're going to just abandon it.
Silverlight never did catch on as well as it could have, so I do feel sorry for those developers who use it, if something should happen.
Or what did you think your netflix player was built on? Microsoft Smooth Streaming is the technology that backs Netflix, and is leaps and bounds ahead of a Adobe's Zeri (now called HTTP Dynamic Streaming) and Apples HLS are ages behind in both there ability to support video on demand and especially live content playback. Which is why its not suppressing it was also used to stream the olympics. This is in large part due to industry acceptance of Playready DRM as a means of content protection.
Also Silverlight has found broad implementation in Microsofts Windows Phone platforms. If people think Microsoft is going to pull support for Netflix they are insane.
If you watched the same video I did of the Windows 8 preview it very clearly shows the the existing windows 7-ish interface is still there, and the the new fancy gui is actually just a full screen application that acts as a host container for these special windows 8 apps. Why does anyone think they would remove support for the huge code base of existing applications? They won't suddenly stop working, and you won't suddenly not be able to develop them any more.
Hardly anyone outside of the Slashdot anti-MS crowd cares. Most users will just install Silverlight and be done with it.
No, Slashdot users are a large majority of the people who would be ABLE to install the plugin.
Most users will find it doesn't work and do something else.
No, most users just follow the instructions and it works just fine.
Here.
Lots of interesting comments there, and yet MS keeps fueling the fire.
HTML(5)/JS is still too much work compared with SL for LOB apps.
I don't see SL going away any time soon.
main() {1;}
As a former Windows Mobile developer, who refused to learn Silverlight and those "X-Box like" APIs for gaming to move to Windows Phone 7, I am unfazed by the silence on Silverlight in Windows 8. Such a logical progression would be inconsistent with their recent befuddling of their chief asset -- their independent developers. I suspect Microsoft has an executive with an agenda to implode the company. If so, then there is at least one person at Microsoft who is on plan.
Uhhh...dude? Installing SL is "clicky clicky, next next next". hell you don't even need to know how to fricking read as long as you know which button is next, hell my grandma could install SL.
That said if you need further proof that Ballmer needs a good firing just look at the killing of VB and the flailing between .NET/ SL and HTML V5. MSFT went from "developers developers developers" to just blindly flinging poo at the wall and praying something sticks. VB was a Godsend for the SMBs and SOHOs, as it gave them an easy to use tool for VERY simple jobs like making a GUI frontend to a DB, and for that it was bloody brilliant. What would take a single line in VB know takes three in .NET and know it looks like they'll bone .NET and SL in favor of whatever is the flavor of the day.
Add onto this the serious case of the "me too!" that MSFT has had since Ballmer took over (I mean seriously have you SEEN Windows 8? They took the wonderful GUI of Win 7 and replaced it with a fricking WinPhone! WTF? Do they think they are Apple?) and you see a once mighty company that was great for business, developers, and consumers, and have become this big drunken flailing elephant desperately trying to be "hip". Kinda sad really. You can see why Apple and Google are kicking their asses now, as they at least stick to their core strengths and build upon them (consumer goods and the web respectively) whereas MSFT is burning their long term gains for short term attempts at being fresh again. Stupid, lame, pointless, a waste.
I have a feeling just like I did with Vista when Win 8 comes out I'll be booked solid for a good year and a half doing nothing but wiping Win 8 to "upgrade" the machines to Win 7. Sigh. I had hopes that once, JUST once, that MSFT would actually put out two good OSes in a row. I guess that is just a pipe dream as long as Steve "We can be as cool as Apple!" Ballmer is still in the big chair.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm a Silverlight developer and have been on the UI side of things all my professional career. Text mode apps in DOS, MFC and VB Win apps, Javascript-heavy browser apps, Javascript-free browser apps, some Java applet stuff, Windows Forms apps - I done a lot of things.
In all these years when the time came for "X to be the new hip thing", it turned out that X had some kind of compelling advantage that justified throwing the old knowledge away and start learning new stuff.
In these times of "HTML5 and Javascript is the future, forget about Silverlight, it's obsolete" though, I'm having a very hard time seeing the positive side.
There's a reason why Silverlight developers are so passionate about this technology. It's not the flashy stuff you *could* do (which gets demoed over and over again). It's the very clean concepts behind the scene that get little credit outside the SL dev community. Even large parts of Microsoft don't realize what a beautiful technology they have created.
As as a Silverlight developer, moving to HTML + Javascript is a step backwards, period. I've done enough Javascript programming to respect it as a language and I've written lots of DHTML (as it was called back then) to know what's possible. But if I'm given the task to write a business app within a certain budget, Silverlight simply get the job done much better.
Hey, Commodore! How could you let my investment ins skills die on the vine! Bring back the C64 and the Amiga!
I've had the opposite experience. Never had any trouble with Flash Netflix, but Silverlight crashes if I watch more than about 2 hours of continuous video (i.e. any long movie). The framerate drops, the screen starts to flicker black, and if I try to interact with Firefox at all it crashes. Thankfully, Netflix is smart enough to save my spot in the film so I can just restart the browser, but it is annoying. Happens in both FF 3 and 4, on W7, 64b.
Silverlight Developers: "We are LEGION!"
Microsoft: "[trollface.jpg]"
to just blindly flinging poo at the wall and praying something sticks.
I assume the wall in question is... the consumers? On their next 'product' launch, remind me to wrap myself in saran wrap. That should do for software, but just remember to add a layer of padding beforehand if the product in question is something like a 'ZuneTwo'.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
The article said nothing about silverlight being dropped
It said that developers are upset that it is not being used for the upcomming windows 8 desktop
Silverlight will remain for web based "Rich Interactive Applications" (as long as you run windows and use the plugin's) - just like it does now.
If developers chose silverlight in the hope it would be the new desktop app system they were mistaken and will pay the (a small) price for their decision
JavaFX did the same to front-end java developers. Turn the page and move on.
... not
The only reason I have Silverlight installed is to be able to access Project Tuva. Feynman is as good a reason as it gets. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
A tile is obviously just a host for an Internet Explorer control for displaying web content, maybe with some extended Javascript APIs so you can do a little more interaction with the operating system. Silverlight runs fine inside said Internet Explorer controls, as does Flash (if you have the plugin installed). There is no reason to expect Windows 8 will be deployed without the Silverlight plugin, Microsoft would want to work out of the box for things like Netflix and wouldn't break backwards compatibility with no reason.
Hence, there is no reason to believe that you won't be able to use Silverlight to develop these tiles on an equal footing to Javascript and HTML 5. Of course, you can't always expect Microsoft to be reasonable. But supporting Silverlight in this case would be a path of least resistance given that the Internet Explorer controls should support it already.
Of course, the most obvious reason they would want to do this is so they can have a Netflix tile going with pretty much zero extra code.
Shit. You mean I'm not really watching Netflix in Chrome on my Mac? Some sort of really sophisticated man-in-the-middle attack perhaps?
Well I'm glad you warned me. I'll just catch up on some highlights on MLB.c--aw hell, I can't really do that either. These hackers are EVERYWHERE!
Why would anyone lock themselves into a walled garden that is Microsoft? Sure you can claim Windows tech and development tools coming from Microsoft gives you access to 85% of the desktop market. But with you are locking yourself in and closing the door on the fastest growing segments of the market, i.e. Mobile and tablet computing. If you are so naive to believe anything coming from any company pertaining to the bright future of their products and your missing out on the riches that follows then you and/or your company have no one to blame but you know who....
---- GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Now seriously, you're under-estimating the ability of your standard user to install malware. Microsoft peddled or otherwise. The massive success of porn diallers in the 90s, and shit like Mac Defender just recently for the mac would tend to disprove your point.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The quirks in C# are like a subset of the quirks in C++.
Almost every quirk in C++ goes away if you sacrifice the right dead chicken. Divining the error message entrails when you abuse Boost.Spirit (to name just one) is what separates the chicken gurus from the chicken giblets. Is religion a subset of mysticism, or is it the other way around?
Not so long ago, "portable" was a subset of Windows machines. Subsets in the real world don't work the way they teach you in set theory.
For a project two years back my shop contracted a GUI specialist who coded the application in Silverlight. He did a good job, within the constraints of the technology (forcing your non-technical users to install a not-entirely-benign slab of whale meat). It was completed on time to specification, unlike almost any other product here. Yet subsequently there were management recriminations that we ever went down this path, due to end user reluctance to embrace the whale, and also the expense of finding future developers for light maintenance.
What I said at the time was "if he gets the database schema right, someday if Microsoft loses the plot we can rinse and repeat".
I never found out what problems Silverlight solves. I understood its existence only in terms of competitive dynamics and it was never clear whether it was *something* or just anything it needed to be this week or this year.
I went to the Microsoft Silverlight web page when the technology was proposed for this project, read the text until I puked and/or passed out with nausea, and that's the last technical insight I've gained. If Silverlight has any technical merit--and that seems to be a frequent claim--there's a reason no-one understands this who hasn't actually coded with it: it's the Microsoft way.
Does anyone else here see the parallel with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"? Will Silverlight live to see its fifth birthday or will alcoholic rage erupt in a mushroom cloud of unspeakable blackness? Stay tuned for the next development in this exciting family drama.
Hardly anyone outside of the Slashdot anti-MS crowd cares. Most users will just install Silverlight and be done with it.
No, Slashdot users are a large majority of the people who would be ABLE to install the plugin.
Most users will find it doesn't work and do something else.
Not sure if you are serious, but 1) last stats I've seen had Silverlight penetration at close to 75% of Internet users, you are claiming a "large majority" of those are Slashdot users? and 2) Have you tried SL install, it is if anything easier and quicker than Flash install, which also some users outside Slashdot seems to have managed to do.
No, Slashdot users are a large majority of the people who would be ABLE to install the plugin.
Most users will find it doesn't work and do something else.
I'm a slashdot user and all I know about Silverlight is that my Windows update log looks like this:
Update for Microsoft Silverlight (KB2526954) Failed
Update for Microsoft Silverlight (KB2526954) Failed
Update for Microsoft Silverlight (KB2526954) Failed
Update for Microsoft Silverlight (KB2526954) Failed
[repeat 100 times]
Update for Microsoft Silverlight (KB2526954) Failed
I eventually killed it after I got fed up of all the error popups.
PS: Yea, .Net does the exact same thing on all the machines in the house too, except there's three versions of that trying to update themselves.
No sig today...
say Apple fanbois are strange! Just because something is not mentioned doesnt mean you need to throw all your toys out of the pram. Rule No 1 of Software Development... If you are relying on a closed source dev environment, then you are already bending over the desk with your trousers down.
Petersenâ(TM)s letter demanded that WPF and Silverlight apps enjoy the same level of integration with Windows 8 tiles and any future Windows app store as apps based on HTML5. He asked that Microsoft publicly commit to its legacy development standards.
Woot! Petersen demands Microsoft publicly commit to VB6 and MFC.
Of course that's not what he means, he means he wants MS to commit to *his* preferred technology. I guess he was there when the VB6 boys were unhappy, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them as the vicious mill-owner Microsoft took their favourite technology and smashed it in front of them.
Wasn't he?
If you depend on proprietary languages and proprietary frameworks, then you've only got yourself to blame when the vendor decides to discontinue support. It's not like it hasn't happened before, for example VB6.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
One of the biggest news items yet released about Windows 8 is that it will be cross-architecture (x86 & ARM), and that the ARM version will not run x86 native binaries. .NET if they want to reach the full Windows market.
This will effectively force ALL programs to be written for
Actually, the promo didn't show any security holes so by that logic Windoof 8 won't be insecure either (sigh).
I want my two minutes back - did Rupert Murdoch buy Slashdot?
Let's suppose Microsoft lurches again and the WinPhoneEsque interface is as obnoxious as the demos make it seem so far.
I set about a "twilight" policy on XP waiting for MS to churn through their bad beta copies of the OS until they made a couple versions with a future. The neat thing about what eventually ended up with XP is that unlike EndOfLife-ing Win98 and even Win2000 was pretty easy, because of the Vista disaster, the entire world has spent eight years on XP where computing essentially came of age. That legacy won't go away for decades.
But what IS the ideal upgrade? (Allow me some visual thinking)
Win2000 -> WinXP ; Pretty simple all things considered.
WinXP -> ____ What?
Vista = broken beta
Win7 = reports coming in as "almost usable" ; Maybe status.
Win8 = "The ugly rectangles, they hurt my eyes!" (Plus some stuff looks like it's deprecating fast!?)
Also watch them put more half-baked middleware tech that ends up becoming Vista Revisited.
Do we really have to wait until Windows *9* to know for sure??
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'll try going up the chain to ask about .net
If they do decide to ditch .net, which last I knew was at least half decent, do you think they have a game plan for a legit successor framework? Or will the devs have to learn yet another environment for Windows 9?
Doesn't that become a hidden cost of dev wear and tear?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Here's my educated guess as to what's happening. I have absolutely no inside information. I've just taken publicly available tidbits and assembled them into a big picture. It may or may not be accurate. In short, Wpf and Silverlight will be present and supported for years. However, they are zombies having been smitten by changes in technologies.
There are two new relevant core technological changes that I'm expecting to hear at Build 2011 (née PDC 2011). First, Microsoft will promote a new UI called MoSH (MOdern SHell but more conceptually MObile SHell) based on IE's Trident render engine that will form the basis for a new initiative. Moving forward, it behooves everyone to build MoSH applications, definitely not Silverlight (web) and possibly not WPF (desktop). MoSH is implemented using HTML5 and thus constrained by HTML5 capabilities. WPF and Silverlight are still completely supported but they're future is cut off at the legs by their successor (MoSH). MoSH can be used with XAML but, significantly, will only support a subset of WPF's and Silverlight's XAML. Again, the constraining factor is HTML5 capabilities and Microsoft's abstractions of them. Thus the key question for Silverlight shops is “How much of Silverlight ISN'T abstracted from HTML5?” I expect both MoSH and WPF/Silverlight to support new device interfaces such as location, multi-touch, gyroscopes, Kinect, etc. I'm not sure if the support will come in the form of .Net 5, be built into MoSH, or as a separate cross-platform library. I believe MoSH for IE will be accompanied by a cross-platform version (Mozilla, Safari, maybe Chrome) in the form of a browser plugin. Marc Andreesen has predicted “The browser will become the OS”. I believe more correctly the control renderer will become the OS. MoSH will become the heart of IE apps, Windows 8 and Windows devices (Windows TV anyone?). The pundits will say Microsoft is becoming a control's vendor. Microsoft could write MoSH controls by C#, native code, or Javascript. This is another key question. Perhaps they'll use all three with Javascript being used for the plugins.
The second technological change is what Microsoft might be calling Native Code. Native Code is a set of technologies that enable software (applications and gadgets) and hardware (graphics) to perform at near native speed inside a container (browser). Most notably, Microsoft will supply tooling to build browser applications, principally with MoSH, without today's performance penalties. Currently browser based applications are limited by API availability (DOM), programming speed (Javascript), and often software rendering. This will all change. Internet Explorer 11(?) will expose a much richer API, possibly .Net 5.0, Visual Studio will enable Native Code development, and IE's Trident renderer will directly use hardware graphics.
Some issues I'm unclear on: .DLLX, run across all devices? If so, when is the code JITed? .Net languages? I'm guessing Microsoft is working hard to limit the changes to attributes. .Net sandboxing or with the aid of hardware as with Google's Native Client (NaCl)? This would make the difference as to whether C will be supported.
* Will Microsoft port MoSH and Native Code to iOS and Android? I'm guessing that they intend to do so directly or through partnerships.
* Will a single dll, possibly named
* Will Native Code force any syntax changes to
* Is Native Code implemented using
* Do CPU processors need changes to optimally support Native Code? Remember, Windows 8 will run on ARM. ARM are the non-Intel processors that power most tablets. Do all existing processors and graphics chips support Native Code and MoSH? I'm particularly curious about the compatibility of legacy ARM processors.
What does Microsoft hope to gain by these changes?
* Build an eco system based on HTML5 standards. The idea being that no competitor can block Microsoft’s tools because they’r
To me, it looks like Silverlight will just die very slowly and painfully. Why?
There are 2 or 3 major non-MS mobile platforms out there (Android, iOS and maybe Blackberry), all of them more popular than MS platforms (at least for now). Low-level users (AKA "unwashed masses") will gradually shift from PC to mobile platforms since those are more suitable for some tasks.
MS is losing the incoming users, they are being abandoned bit by bit. That's why they seem to me to be getting more and more desperate. That's why they try new things like pushing Silverlight to get people interested. Fact is, no one that I know, except for one guy (who literally seems to be MS slave, and worse: supporter) has never even heard of this "Silverlight" thing ("What? Is this some kind of new energy-saving light bulb?").
When people don't perceive something as MS-infested market, they will become used to non-MS product(s). Later on, when they face the choice of upgrade of their existing favourite platform or switching over to MS, guess what they choose. Silverlight is currently constrained to MS platforms, so what do you think happens when majority uses non-MS platform? That's right, it dies off because it becomes so obscure no one uses it. It doesn't die straight away because someone will inevitably integrate it in a product that cannot be migrated easily so there will be some life support for the product going on, along with the platform.
I hope Silverlight gets replaced by something else, hopefully at least semi-open source and REALLY cross-platform. To be terribly honest, Moonlight just doesn't work well. It's lagging behind the latest Silverlight features and just plain doesn't work in some cases. Silverlight is doomed on non-MS platforms and those are the future.
It seems to be web developers don't know shit about developing enterprise applications.
Silverlight is a vastly superior technology to HTML 5 and JavaScript when developing business applications. If you argue that either a) you really don't know what your talking about or b) you don't actually know what Silverlight is and are assuming its something like flash.
I f k n hate web developers - too long developing in an environment meant to present documents has f k d them up.
Finally –I f k n hate MS for jumping on the HTML 5 bandwagon. Some serious politics happening there HTML 5 canvas can’t conceive the stuff you can do in Silverlight.
Ironically, by making this outcry they bring alot of attention to the fact that Silverlight was missing from the demo - something I didn't even think about. After this piece of news I am even more inclined to believe that Silverlight is just a passing thing.
Microsoft doesn't have partners. They have future victims.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
most users just follow the instructions
You've never done technical support, have you?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"I thought that Silverlight was just another technology, to be discussed and evaluated like any other."
Mod parent Funny for that one.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
To be yourself that's ok
www.coniefoxdress.com
That's the reason proprietary software is bad: almost always, there comes the day that the software stack you use are no longer supported or even available.
This is just a bunch of linux guys in another "this is the year of the desktop guys!" hooplah.
If MS had any plans to expel Silverlight from the browser, why aren't they adding real app support to IE? (Web Workers, WebGL, IndexedDB, Web Sockets, typed arrays, and so on..)
There is no story here.
> and you see a once mighty company that was great for business, developers, and consumers
Seriously? Or are you referring to DOS 5.0?
Yes, a common platform is what helped PCs gain in the early days. But since then?
Lock-in and anti-competitive measures are _never_ good for anyone other than the one doing it.
MS has always made application compatibility their primary concern in their new OSes, even above security IMO. These guys don't have to worry. First of all desktop .NET applications can probably still function just the same way normal windows apps do. Same with silverlight. As for the "new" interface, I would imagine it can do everything IE10 will be able to do (ick), so I imagine it will support Silverlight and Flash and what have you, unless MS tries to pull an Apple for tablet support and blocks them.
I've never even installed it. I never will either.
This is the way Microsoft has always worked. Roll out something nifty, get developers (developers, developers!) to invest time and effort into it, then upgrade it into something completely different or kill it. On the rare occasions when they get something right, they quickly morph it into something ugly. The thing to remember is that what's good for the developers or good for the general public doesn't matter - what matters is what puts more money in Microsoft's account.
All those Silverlight apps need rewritten in HTML/CSS/Javascript. That means job security if you got good at programming in general and can pick up new things easy or had experience in HTML/CSS/Javascript before. What does it matter if it was done in Silverlight and now has to be converted to something else? Pick up or refresh yourself on the something else and keep getting paid.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
This is just same old Microsoft. Happens to every Microsoft technology where instead of fixing issues, making standards compliant compilers etc, they just abandon the platform and start pushing for adoption of the new "best thing since sliced bread"...
The sooner you realize the Microsoft technology stack you program in has nothing to do with making your life/career easier and your skills transferable but has everything to do with Microsoft fighting for turf against open standards competition on the other side (at times this includes everyone else), the better for you.
And if in your awakening to this reality you also realize that UNIX has pretty much won on mobile side and that there is enough work on UNIX server side as well all the better for you.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Looks like it runs on OSX too, I have no idea how I failed to notice that. probably just my aversion to all things Apple coupled with my aversion for all things Microsoft. Consider my face red.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Check to see if your Company name is available http://bit.ly/m2IHF4
Intern: Sir, the Silverlight developers are revolting!
Manager: Thats right, they need to have a shower and get out more.
(CAPTCHA: tyranny)
You're clearly being ridiculous. Win7 is not almost usable, it is good. Everybody likes it. Also, hasn't the slashdot crowd had enough of mocking Windows 8 on a shell alone? Specifically when it comes with two different versions, classic and touch because its an OS for desktops, laptops and tablets so, uh, the tablet needs a different UI to be a little more usable? Holy shit. Also, Microsoft not saying ".Net will run on Windows 8!" means they're deprecating it fast? Somehow I feel like I need to wait a while before screaming Windows 8 is the devil and we'll never get off of XP. Actually I would never say that because everybody who has ever used Windows 7 knows it is a good upgrade to XP.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Nah, all of the former VB developers have moved to Python.
The first thing that comes to people's minds when they think "Silverlight" is Netflix. The second is Windows Phone 7. Anyone developing applications for Windows Phone 7 is using either Silverlight (the "application" toolkit) or XNA (the "game" toolkit) on top of the .NET Compact Framework. I've read that IronPython, the port of Python to the .NET Framework, doesn't work on Windows Phone 7 due to the lack of System.Reflection.Emit.
I seem to recall Bill G. a few years ago saying "I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time.". Now that he's no longer in charge, I'm sure they're even more loyal to their developer base...
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Oh dear.
An other group of disgruntled MS developers that invested blood, tears, wife and kids on a strategic fiasco.
Think of it this way. MS is learning and are beginning to make real tough decisions.
Silverlight as a technology is not so bad. But it is and will always be a MS proprietary technology.
However you can still use most of your skills with WPF. So it is not all that bad after all.
Now ASP.NET user controls. That was a big f"#% disaster that took ten years to correct.
Finally someone came up with Razor. Cutting all the way back to the good old ASP regards to client server design and dev. workflow.
And ASP.NET is suddenly not so horrible anymore.
Cheer up Silverlighters and learn some good old HTML, AJAX, WebKit, the Canvas tag, SVG, and perhaps some WebGL.
You'd be a damn fool to invest any time in learning any Microsoft technology. Java code from 15 years ago is still working fine, thanks. More importantly, you can still make a living from it. In the end, the Microsoft Arrogance department will only support C++ and then, only because their own software is coded in it.
Technologies may change. Code syntax doesn't have to. You can extend to the new, without destroying the old. The guys-with-a-better-idea never bothered.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Considering that there is a rumor that Xbox will support Silverlight sooner rather than later
Xbox 360 already supports XNA, a more game-oriented toolkit for the .NET Compact Framework. What would Silverlight add?
Ok I'll go out on a limb here and make a prediction. MS is just copying the osX iOS split from Apple, but doing it wrong.
Basically they're going to want all their applications to be redone in html 5 and javascript so that they can be optimised for touch interfaces (like apple did with iOS). They're doing this because for some misguided reason they think touch will take off on the desktop. I saw their demo and I'm guessing that if you want your app to get it's own live tile on the "Main" screen, then you'll have to create a html5 interface for it. Chances are that they'll try to announce a something to ease the transition in Visual Studio this September, but development isn't going as well as it should and they know they're probably going to miss that deadline.
Either way it's just people moaning that they have to redo their presentation layer. Big whoop, if you're a even a terrible coder html and javascript should not be difficult to pick up.
Its available for Windows and Mac
Both of which cost money. Adding Windows to a home-built PC costs 200 USD. Is a version of Silverlight that is compatible with existing web sites available for any operating system that is freely redistributable?
It's also exactly the reason why you should choose a layered architecture, and preferably MVC/MVP or MVVM.
I too am a fan of model-view-controller and other layered architectures. But a layered architecture doesn't help if the different platforms don't share a language. Imagine that I need to support one platform that supports only standard C++ and Objective-C and another platform that supports only 100% pure .NET IL. In which language should I write the model? Or should I write the model in an interpreted language and write an interpreter for each platform? I'm hesitant to do so for fear of the hit to speed and battery life.
Obviously from this thread and the headline, there's little understanding of what the uprising is about. Silverlight is not dead - perhaps on the web at large, but within intranets and line of business apps it's huge. But that's the stuff that you'd never see if you don't work for a Microsoft shop. And the big issue isn't any of that anyway - it's that Microsoft has FINALLY been working on getting their mobile strategy together and now it looks like they're changing directions erratically. Windows Phone 7 was a huge (but late) step forward, and a lot of investment has begun in that arena. And silverlight was a big part of that. And now with the Windows 8 announcement with so much focus on mobile, the silence about silverlight is deafening. There's nothing that indicates that they are building on their previous direction.
.NET developer, but have never had anything but passing interest in silverlight)
Now, you may be part of the typical slashdot crowd and believe that this is just SOP with Microsoft, and for a small subset of technologies you'd be right, but mostly that opinion is dead wrong as MS is probably one of the best companies out there at supporting legacy tech and putting out stuff with backwards compatibility in mind. It's what keeps MS in business, and it's something that has many flaws, but is their greatest strength as well. This Windows 8 announcement looks to be an abandonment of that philosophy, and it's a bit alarming. If they have something to say about WPF development for mobile, they need to say it - and quick. (Full disclosure: Professionally, I'm a
I thought silverlight was just an IDE/RAD for .net and a derivative of CAML?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Because I'd like to know what form this "revolt" is going to take. Are they going to stop developing with Silverlight in protest? Are they going to reverse engineer and distribute a compatible Silverlight product of their own? Are they going to stop talking up Microsoft to their buddies? Are they going to take to the streets with torches? Because "whine in forums" isn't really a synonym for "revolt."
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
That screw-over line made me laugh. I was already thinking "man these guys really drank the koolaid". Do you recall Plays-for-sure? I got stuck in the 90s when DDE was borked and they said just switch to OLE. There is a reason slashdot thinks Silverlight is a bad idea and you guys were wrong to choose it. There is even some great writing by Joel on the subject and that was written in 2002. It doesn't matter if it made sense at the time for a .net shop. It was a poor strategic decision. You don't get to come back a few years later and try to justify that with but but but... Many (most) people had better insight and avoided it. Next time, evaluate technology and make the right choice. Don't just do it because it's the "next big thing" from your current supplier. And lastly, I think you're a liar or just plain stupid when you said you believed a Microsoft technology would give you a cross-platform solution.
Windows 7 is not a good OS and everybody do not like it, they just like it better than Vista. Its better than Windows Vista and when people compare them side by side, Windows 7 wins but thats because Vista was such a turd, not because Windows 7 is any better than XP. Windows 7 is as plagued by security issues as any of its predecessors and just as susceptible to the famous bit-rot of Windows XP. Ive seen countless people discover that firsthand, fresh install runs fine but half a year later its time to reinstall it all.
Windows 8 isnt an OS, its atleast two completely different OS with similar UI and hopefully a cross-platform development kit. Older stuff will only run on one of them so the confusion will be rather hilarious to watch once people realize its not backwards compatible at all in one of the versions.
I had my hopes up that Windows 8 would be a cleanup of Windows 7 and some simplification and deprecation of all the old cruft still running the show in Windows. What we get are the same old crap but with yet another UI ontop of it and new places to hide all the various settings and dialogs.
If Windows 7 is your answer you take your questions right out of Microsofts glassy marketing material.
HTTP/1.1 400
If it doesn't run on my bosses iPad, it's worthless. If it doesn't run on our salespeople's Android tablets it is worthless.
So, the only "open standards" to do what the want is either HTML5 (likely, embraced and extended) or the lesser known QML from Nokia.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
So a version of linux compiled for x86 and a version compiled for x64 are two different operating systems because x64 apps don't run on x86 machines? Are you fucking stupid? Also, that does not include any .Net applications that run on the CLR or any Java apps that run on a JVM. Oh, shit, looks like StarCraft won't run on my ARM tablet! Somehow I'm shocked by this! To say it isn't backwards compatible at all is misleading at best, but I suspect you're just intentionally overstating the effects of having a different CPU architecture to make it sound like Windows 8 is going to be terrible. Is the version of Server 2003 that runs on Itanium a different OS than Server 2003 for x86 architectures?
This is nothing new. And it is funny that you claim Windows 7 is no better than XP by citing some problems in XP that are still present in Windows 7. So does that mean Aero isn't better? Does that mean 64 bit support isn't better than in the 64 bit version of XP? Some of the changes to the task bar (such as jump lists) are nice, the libraries are nice, the search is much, much better than it ever has been. But you're right, Windows 7 is not worth upgrading to because it will get "bit rot" just like XP, so we should just stay there on a 32-bit operating system (or 64 bit with the worlds crappiest driver and application stability).
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Developers expressed fears Microsoft might let their investment in skills "die on the vine"
Serves them right for getting in bed with the evil empire. How many times has Microsoft demonstrated the way they treat their partners? Plays for Sure, IBM - PS/2, and the list goes on.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
... yet despite my fondest hopes it's not going away. Like Flash Silverlight will either sell it self or be relegated to serving Netflix.
Oh boy, here we go again.
M$ killed DirectX 9.0c, and replaced it with incompatible XNA (aka DX10) -- this orphaned DXSound and other DX components. Sorry developers, wouldn't want to be ya.
Now the abandonment of SilverLight and .Net.
O well, lesson learned -- the hard way. Ha I wonder if this is because Visual Studio licenses are not meeting revenue expectations and the cash cow is drying up.
Interesting read (through Google Translate). Thank you.
Microsoft should make .NET + WPF compile to HTML5 and/or Flash. And Adobe should make Flash compile to .SWF and HTML5. Separating the tools from the platform opens things up hugely. It is awesome when we see demos of people compiling old-skool C applications to Javascript using open-source options. If the big tool makers got into this it would be amazing. Naturally, they don't want things to be open. :-(
He said "background task". In other words, you're not waiting for it to complete.
On a server, if enough background tasks are queued up, one for each client, then there eventually comes a point where there are so many background tasks that clients have to start waiting for them to complete. And on a handheld, even if I'm not waiting for a task to complete, the CPU still has to draw power from the battery until it completes.
Most of the time, "good enough" actually is good enough.
Except when your site gets linked on the front page of Slashdot, and it turns out that "good enough" isn't. But I agree with you that most web sites probably don't get exposure comparable to a Slashdotting.
Oh deary me, how sad for them. They decided to sharecrop on Microsoft's patch, and now Microsoft has decided they don't want to farm that patch anymore and they're out in the cold. And of course Microsoft has never done anything of the sort before so they had no way whatsoever to anticipate this. Right.
Does this mean that someday I will be able to watch streaming videos from Netflix on my Ubuntu Linux box?
+1 for this. Silverlight hasn't been around that long, they obviously were fairly recently able to learn something new. It's understandably frustrating to lose all that work, but they can certainly do it again and move on. The tech world is ever-changing, and we have to be too.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Many sites are phasing out their Flash interfaces. If you're a Silverlight developer, you should have seen the writing on the wall by now.
...concentrating on developing my Windows Workflow skills. Silly me !
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=Update+for+Microsoft+Silverlight+(KB2526954)+Failed
That was hard wasn't it.
The problem the GP had is they are still under the assumption that all slashdot users have a clue, while that was true many years ago, you clearly prove that it is no longer the case as you could have resolved the issue in a few seconds if you actually had a clue.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Silverlight isn't going anywhere. MSFT is still heavily invested in it (Win phone apps are all Silverlight in case you forgot).
That said, if it were going somewhere I'd be mad. Not because Silverlight specifically would be going, but because it would be replaced by something completely inferior. HTML5 is slower, scales worse, less functional, and easier to make bugs in than Silverlight.
(Allow me some visual thinking)
Only on Oh-We-Can't-Figure-Out-Unicode Slashdot is "->" considered thinking visually ....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Silverlight isn't going anywhere. We get this scary FUD every 6 months or so that Silverlight is going away, but it's not.
This sounds like another example of lock-in turning into lock-out.
Microsoft has sometimes done things in a proprietary or different way as a tool for creating "lock-in" to their ecosystem. So folks adopt things like .Net and Silverlight and WMA format audio files.
The other day I heard someone who I knew was a Microsoftie complaining that they couldn't upload their music to either Google's or Amazon's clouds and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Well, if your music is in either MP3 or AAC format, it'll all work fine, as those are open enough. But if your music is in WMA format... Microsoft has tried to lock you in to Windows, and the result is that if you're not sophisticated enough to deal, you're being locked out of Google and Amazon and, basically, the future.
Sounds like the folks who bought in to Silverlight are getting hit by the same phenomenon. It's interesting to me that it's happening at about the same time.
I guess the lesson is to give up on drinking Microsoft's kool-aid, and go for standards-based interoperability wherever you can. It might be a little more work in the short term, but it will be less in the long term.
(Prediction: Outlook/Exchange and SharePoint will suffer the same kinds of fates within 18 months, at least on a small scale.)
Like Windows Phone, Silverlight is a lame duck. I'm surprised anyone used it.
Slashdot users still have more of a clue than the general populace. You just proved my point...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You are kidding right. The whole IT support industry is based on the fact that most people cannot follow instructions.
Yes, for while I had it installed for a Mac for Netflix.
I'm telling you, even the most simple plugin is a very hard gateway for most people to get past. 75% is awful when you consider that SIlverlight now comes on most PC's and Microsoft has been pushing it like hell AND Netflix requires it on the Mac.
Who wants to target 75% of the internet? Not me.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.winrumors.com/silverlight-isnt-dead-its-the-heart-of-windows-phone-windows-8-and-xbox/
I work for a .Net Shop and the why comes down to money.
The cost of Microsoft software is tremendous, but if you get a gold, or even silver Microsoft Certification, you get discounts on the software. Part of this certification is using their products in basically everything you do. Sometimes even if their product is the completely worst choice.
This is why there are .Net Shops because if you decide you want to develop products using Microsoft technology, it usually only makes sense to be all in.
which is really just another way of saying by utlizing standards and conventions (including a standard suite of tools) systems are much more maintainable than a schizo approach of optimum technology for every requirement.
Sure, a skilled programmer can be multi-lingual (I am) but I can tell you with certainty that I understand the nuances of my primary language much better than secondary tertiary etc... Combine that with limits on head count in most teams and I'm not going to be able to hire a guru in every language (or even every major language) out there.
Sometimes optimum solution has to take a back seat to practicality of being maintainable and by extension (due to deep knowledge of the specific tool rather than just knowledge) robustness, stability, etc...
they should just admit that they fucked up with Silverlight and hung the devoted developer community that exists out to dry
There was no fuck up. They're marketing a new generation of products. To you. They're trying to make a few bucks. From you. Sure there's going to be a lot of needless busy work and reinventing the wheel for about the fifth time. By you. I don't really see any issues here. Except for you.
More Kool-Aid?
Ditto. Those videos are awesome.
how is babby formed?
Plugins like Silverlight are needed for out of browser business apps that need to print and run reports. Out of browser apps look like real desktop apps, without the painful install. And as an ex-Java/Perl developer, Silverlight is the best language I've ever used
I've always felt that it's stupid to pigeon-hole yourself into being a _______ developer. I'm a professional graphic designer, just a hobby programmer, and a pretty experienced web designer and have done more than my share of front-end work over the years (including JavaScript in the bad old days).
I realize that there is time and energy involved in learning a particular programming language/environment, but isn't that kind of what you signed up for? When I applied somewhere that used Quark I didn't say "sorry, I only design with InDesign and Photoshop." I warned them I didn't have much experience in it and that might slow me down a bit at first, then I sucked it up and learned the new environment when they hired me. The tools were different (in some places radically so), and took quite a lot of learning to acclimate myself, but surprise surprise the basic design skills I've developed over the years still applied.
Similarly, the concepts of programming are the concepts of programming. Once you get good enough you aught to be able to transfer those skills to other languages. A loop is a loop, an array is an array, etc.
That said, if you do put all your professional skill development eggs in one proprietary basket you completely deserve any harm that befalls you because of that dumb-shit decision. Doubly so if you're so dense that you can't transfer anything you learned writing VB in .NET to big boy programming.
Porquoi?
Dude Win 7 is fricking awesome and if you haven't gotten it yet you don't know what you are missing! That is why the WinPhone Win 8 hurts so bad, it isn't like they are going from suck Vista to Suck Win 8 here. Breadcrumbs, libraries, excellent file management and search capability, built in performance monitoring and testing, hardware testing, hardware video acceleration, it all "just works" which is what makes their Win 8 "We can be as hip as Apple, yes we can, we really really can! STOP LAUGHING AT ME!" Ballmer mess really bites.
So considering Win 7 will bu supported until 2020 (this is supposedly for Pro and up, but since the patches for Pro work on Home just like with XP, and Home is still getting patches I'd say that isn't a problem) your best bet is to get Win 7 and then sit back and watch Win 8 die hard. Then after a good bitch slapping like they got with Vista hopefully Ballmer will get the boot and Win 9 will be done by the office guys (which is who came in and did 7 IIRC) and it will be awesome again.
Nice thing about Windows though is support lasts long enough you can just skip the shitty every other crapfests and just go from good version to good version. wish I would have done that instead of bashing my head on the desk for nearly a year trying to get Vista not to suck.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If you check the Wikipedia pages you find that:
Visual Basic: Appeared in 1991 with the final release of VB6 in 1998.
VB.NET: Appeared in 2001, Latest release April 2010
Given VB was 10 years old when it was replaced by VB.NET, I'd say a re-write was in order. Same thing with iCloud and IE9 not supporting Windows XP, which is also 10 years old (Fall 2001). This means that Silverlight, which was released in April of 2007 (About 4 years ago) and is currently on it's 4th version with the 5th on it's way probably has another 5 or 6 years before it is rendered obsolete by the next technology shift.
I can tell you how to make bitrot disappear forever if you'd like. This version of Win 7 I'm typing this on has been running since RTM, that is nearly 3 years, and my XP nettop has been running with the same install since Oct 04 and ZERO bitrot. Now there is a free way and a pay way, I use the pay way but the free way works as well, you just have to keep up with it. what you want is either Tuneup Utilities (the pay way and most excellent) or WinUtilites Free (The free way, you have to run it manually) because what I've found is that "bitrot" is caused by programs shitting on the registry which over time causes it to fill with invalid entries that screw shit up. With Tuneup (You can find a free license for 09 on several sites, they give it hoping you'll try it and buy the new version, worth every penny BTW) it fixes the mess caused by bad programs every 3 days with NO intervention on your part, just leave it alone and watch bitrot disappear.
As for 7 not being good, can I have some of what you're smoking please? Win 7 is fricking awesome compared to XP! Surperfetch, libraries, excellent built in search, breadcrumbs, jumplists, OS level hardware acceleration, it is better and more intuitive in EVERY way. Hell my 68 year old dad got impatient and decided to install it himself rather than waiting on me. With XP it would have equaled a broken infected mess, with 7? I get there and the ONLY thing I had to do was install Firefox for him, that's it. It downloaded and install ALL the drivers, set up everything for him (the hardest question it asked was "are you at home or at work?" for the network settings) and even pointed him at first boot to a page with free and pay AV software so he wouldn't be vulnerable.
It is bloody brilliant and why Win 8 going from the excellent Win 7 UI to Win Phone frankly sucks. I only hope that like their driver rules they force ISVs to have an interface for both the WinPhone UI and the Win 7 UI, otherwise I'll be spending another year tossing Win 8 for 7 like I did tossing Vista for XP. But frankly while I use XP on a couple of machines like my nettop where it really makes no sense spending $100+ on an HP license frankly running XP is just painful after running 7.
I may end up breaking down and buying a 7 license for my nettop so I won't have to touch XP anymore, just go ahead and buy the family pack when I upgrade my nephew's box in a month or two with a new board so it'll support PCIe since I'll be getting his 7600GT AGP card out of the deal. Because after running 7 frankly WinXP looks like some creaky old crap which it really is. 7 is just head and shoulders better in every way, better security (4 per 1000 infections for 7 VS 18 per 1000 on XP IIRC) better UI, better performance with better management tools, just better in every measurable way. If you haven't switched you really should. Just give it a week to learn the new UI like breadcrumbs and jumplists and you'll never want to go back.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2225174&cid=36390518 Go on now, answer it, and face the music troll.
"Developers" = Script Kiddie no talent peons.
Yes, for while I had it installed for a Mac for Netflix.
I'm telling you, even the most simple plugin is a very hard gateway for most people to get past. 75% is awful when you consider that SIlverlight now comes on most PC's and Microsoft has been pushing it like hell AND Netflix requires it on the Mac.
Who wants to target 75% of the internet? Not me.
I wasn't advocating targeting Silverlight (though I do think it was better than Flash at a time those were the options for some things), just thought the claim that mostly only Slashdotters were able to install it was a bit far fetched, to put it mildly.
I wouldn't target only 75% of the Internet either, but seems many have been willing to make that choice when discontinuing support for IE6 and IE7 at at time the numbers weren't that much different.
Hiya.
Your positive review of Win7 is noted. My "mostly usable" bit deals with the difference in legacy hardware specs because right now one of the things XP has going for it is that everyone's second hand boxes are coming up for $100 prices, so you can just slap XP on there and get stuff done.
But your last paragraph, followed by your first one, is mostly my point, I am a bit nervous people will spend their time trying to make Win8 Not-Suk. Then after everyone else is exhausted again, let's echo your phrasing "Win 9 was done by the other guys" and it's good again. You know, I'm not at all confident Win7 will be "supported to 2020" because they're making the software apps side "X version only". I'm pretty sure that some stuff is already "Windows 7 only" aka Vista isn't supported. So soon they'll decide that Internet Explorer 11 or something is Windows 8 only. That's their version of Not Supporting the OS.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Tablets are just PCs with a touchscreen.
But not all tablets have Silverlight because very few tablets run Windows. Tablets running iOS, Android, or BlackBerry Tablet OS don't have Silverlight.
It's like if you were to say that a laptop isn't a PC because it's not a desktop.
If desktops and laptops commonly ran different operating systems, I might be justified in saying that.
and when i run it, my pc drops into a lower gear. is this cause for concern?
Silverlight was an horrific attempt to imitate an already dying technology: Flash. I'm sorry, but anyone who invested time & money into Silverlight did not do one's homework. It was only ever a transitional technology, destined to be replaced by HTML5. Overall, it was basically flash, but slower, less cross-platform compatible, and generally less reliable. Flash for .net addicts. Thank god they're both on their way out.