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Silverlight Developers Rally Against Windows 8

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the we're-not-gonna-take-it dept.

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."

34 of 580 comments (clear)

  1. Evil overlord's minions demand more evil. by Alex+Belits · · Score: 5, Funny

    A much better headline.

    --
    Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
    1. Re:Evil overlord's minions demand more evil. by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And a pretty good example of why it has failed... Had Netflix chosen Adobe Flash, they wouldn't be having so much trouble supporting platforms other than Windows.

      As much as I dislike Flash (it's a poorly written CPU hog), Silverlight is even worse. Yes it performs better - but only on the single officially supported platform.

      To Silverlight developers - boo-hoo, cry me a river. You brought this upon yourselves by immediately transitioning your content to new versions of Silverlight as soon as Microsoft released them without waiting for other platform's implementations (like Monolight) to catch up with the new features. End result is your content only worked in Windows, so users hated Silverlight-based sites and went out of the way to avoid them. (Potentially to your competition.) If it is indeed true that MS is moving away from Silverlight, I am not surprised. Producing Windows-only solutions simply does not work in the current market.

      An additional note: To my knowledge, Silverlight is not supported on any mobile platform (except maybe WP7, which is such a smalltime player as to be irrelevant). It is definitely not supported by iOS or Android, the two largest holders of mobile device market share. It is your fault for ignoring the explosion of mobile devices and sticking with a technology not supported by iOS or Android.

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      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  2. in other news... by s4m7 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...there's a legion of silverlight developers.

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    This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
    1. Re:in other news... by icannotthinkofaname · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Must be a new policy against slashvertisements or something. Why can't we just replace the phrase "A legion of Silverlight developers" with the name "Netflix"?

      --
      Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
    2. Re:in other news... by Yvan256 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, those 23 guys are gonna be pissed!

    3. Re:in other news... by DarwinSurvivor · · Score: 3, Funny

      From what I hear it's a implementation of silverlight just as much as IE6 was an implementation of HTML.

    4. Re:in other news... by jason.sweet · · Score: 4, Funny

      Judging by their overreaction to what was NOT said, I don't think they are guys.

  3. I am a Silverlight Developer by iONiUM · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by tokul · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This was a low move from a company that previously has a great track record with developers

      You are on the wrong track. Ask VB or web developers about their track records with MS.

    2. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      @iONiUM
      Surely you didnt believe siverlight would be everywhere??? Thats your mistake, believing a corrupt company. You deserve what you got. Now go use a more open vendor neutral development product.

    3. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you honestly believe they're going to even wink and nod at Silverlight? It failed because everyone already knew Flash, and Flash didn't require you to know a real programming language.

      Silverlight wasn't that attractive for me as a web developer. I had a hard enough time convincing our outsourced call centers to use Firefox 3 or 4, getting them to install Flash or any other plugin was going to be a giant fucking hassle. In your case though, it sounds like you didn't have that problem.

      (I was sad too, Silverlight's Firefox plugin, unlike the Flash plugin, never pegged my CPU to shit ads at me. Netflix also used less CPU to render similar content that I could stream off of Youtube... and this is on the -mac-, so it's not even like they're biased against me.)

      What strikes me as strange is that silverlight integration wasn't something they were talking about day one with Windows 8. if everything's an HTML document supported by JavaScript and styled with CSS, then why not have silverlight integration for more complex tasks?

      Microsoft is even starting to fail at Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Usually technologies like silverlight(or activex in the past), would be the shiv up their sleeves to extinguish the flames. Instead, they're playing catchup to the likes of Apple, Google and HP(their own partner for Windows computers!).

      Feh.

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      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    4. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by miffo.swe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Silverlight could have been a success if only it had been cross platform. No sane person who screwed up with ActiveX and IE6 would touch Silverlight with a ten foot pole once it was clear it was a Windows only plugin without any support on anything but a PC. Granted there was a Mac plugin but nobody took it seriously. Had they released Linux support it would atleast have appered to be platform agnostic.

      Silverlight was never cross platform. Two platforms do not make something cross platform. Unofficial support from a third party does not make the original cross platform. Thats like calling Windows applications cross platform because of Wine.

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      HTTP/1.1 400
    5. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by Necroman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I would upvote you but I have a story to share.

      A few years back I worked for a hardware company that was looking to partner with MS for their storage software stack. We were doing some pretty crazy things to integrate their OS into our hardware and were working off promises of specific features and deadlines.

      After being 8 months+ into the project, MS starts missing software drops and stops communicating release status with us. We eventually discover they didn't like their product as was and was going back to the drawing board, which basically screwed our release.

      I don't expect a lot out of MS when it comes top products that arent their main line revenue makers.

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      Its not what it is, its something else.
    6. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by jrumney · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... 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.

      Sorry, but I read that, and reread it several times to make sure I hadn't missed anything, but I still don't see any reason to stop thinking you are insane.

    7. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by Rophuine · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know I'm just jumping on the band-wagon here, but I'm a .Net developer who's worked for a couple of shops over the last few years and has seen plenty of new web products started. I've been on at least three projects where we wrote off Silverlight as an option, citing reasons like unwillingness to use the plugin, lack of available developers, and general opinions that the platform was on a fast-track to being canned.

      Then again, most products I've worked on with a focus on having a great user experience tend to undergo pretty massive UI overhauls every 18 months to three years, and it's pretty common to use different technologies at each iteration. Being forced into changing UI platforms shouldn't come as any sort of surprise to you.

    8. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by inglorion_on_the_net · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thanks for providing some perspective. It is good to hear observations and opinions that may not align with the views most commonly expressed here.

      Still, there are a lot of things in your post that I don't really understand.

      I know Silverlight is a running joke on /., and everyone here hates it

      Is that so? I thought that Silverlight was just another technology, to be discussed and evaluated like any other. It has its merits, and I have seen several people speak favorably about it on Slashdot.

      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.

      There are several things here that irk me. I don't think it's insane that a .NET shop would use Silverlight. I mean, if you're already committed to one, it's easy to use the other, right?

      What bothers me, though, is the concept of a ".NET shop". So, there is this company that has decided that .NET is going to be their answer to every question they encounter. I know that there are many companies that make this choice, or the same choice, but for a different technology (e.g. Java). But what happened to using the best tool for the job? There is a lot of impressive technology in .NET, but is it really the best tool for every job, now and in the future? In my view, it isn't, and can't be. So I would have my developers learn several technologies, and chose the best one for each project. Any developer worth their salt should have no problem with that, IMO.

      Next, the idea that Silverlight was a good choice to deliver a very rich user experience over the web that was cross platform. It may technically be possible (I haven't looked at Silverlight hard enough to know), but the idea that this would be cross-platform is simply wrong. If anyone had seriously looked at it, they would have realized that Silverlight only really works under Windows. Yes, I know about Moonlight, but simply reading the WikiPedia article about it will tell you that what works under Silverlight will not necessarily also work under Moonlight. I am not going to speculate as to why people at your company may have thought Silverlight was cross-platform, but I am going to say that it was the wrong tool for the goal you stated, and someone should have realized this and spoken up. You may deride Slashdot's groupthink, but at least we do get dissenting posts, and they do get modded up, too.

      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."

      I don't think HTML5 would have been a good choice, either, so I am glad to hear you didn't go that route. However, I wonder why you didn't go with Flash, given that, in your own words, it was the big thing TM for interactive "web applications" at the time. It also has a much better track record than Silverlight as far as support for multiple platforms is concerned. So why didn't you go with Flash? Also, since you mentioned HTML5, did you consider using DHTML (AKA AJAX)?

      As I said, since we're a .NET shop, Silverlight was a really great alternative to Flash.

      Well, opinions seem to differ about that. I think that if you had already decided on .NET, then Silverlight could have been a better choice than Flash (after all, you can write your code for Silverlight in a .NET language). However, if you had put the requirements first, instead of the technology choice, and your requirements included "cross-platform", then I question whether Silverlight would have been the better, or even a good choice.

      Furthermore, if you

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      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    9. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by hedleyroos · · Score: 3

      I used to be a Windows dev back in the day (Delphi, Borland C++ etc.). I quite liked it and worked on neat products, but eventually the Linux environment became so much more productive for me. And my eyes opened to the difficulty non-MS users encounter when trying to get things to work that were foisted upon the world by MS. So while I appreciate that Silverlght may have a good dev environment I'm really glad I was never part of something that excludes certain users.

    10. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by shmlco · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Silverlight was Microsoft's answer to Flash, back when it looked like Adobe would take home the rich media prize. Then Apple boot stomped Adobe in the guts, declared support for HTML5, and the Flash gravy train jumped the rails.

      With even Adobe admitting that future products need to support HTML5, Silverlight is now an answer to a question that no one is asking. In a few years, Microsoft will quietly toss it into the basement, along with all of the other misfit toys they no longer want or need.

      Oh, well. Maybe it can play with Bob and Clippy....

      --
      Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
    11. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by mcrbids · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But what happened to using the best tool for the job? There is a lot of impressive technology in .NET, but is it really the best tool for every job, now and in the future? In my view, it isn't, and can't be.

      There are many cases where using the "right tool" offers dramatic performance improvements over the wrong tool. For example, writing large scale structured data storage in C is probably a bad idea, but SQL does the job just wonderfully.

      But most cases aren't so clear cut.

      At my company, we're a Unix/LAMP shop focusing on PHP and Postgres. Gguess what our server administration scripts run? There's a small amount of BASH, but by and large, it's all.... PHP!

      Not that PHP is the ideal language for system administration and coordinating backups or system updates, but it's "good enough" and we're already familiar with it. By having it all written in PHP we get "plenty good enough" performance and the knowledge that any of our developers can pick up the script and immediately start reading it without having to think about the nuances of a different language.

      And really, even if there's a 10:1 system performance difference, does it make any difference if the background task completes in 5 seconds instead of 0.5 when it reduces overhead elsewhere?

      The "best" tool for the job is often the most conveniently available tool for the job...

      --
      I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    12. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by segedunum · · Score: 3, Interesting

      VB developers had an extremely long and successful run of it and even now you can still developm in VB.net.

      Not a very great way of putting it. What it meant was that countless billions of lines of existing code were useless overnight in Microsoft's new development environment. That was the first time something like that had happened and the warning signs should have been there for everyone involved as the same thing happened with .Net over the years - Winforms, WPF, XAML, Silverlight........ Microsoft could never decide what it was doing and seemed to expect everyone to rewrite their code every couple of years. Some people just haven't learned.

      And given that VB.net is basically a CLR compatible dialect it means you can work, reuse & integrate with every other .NET language and technology.

      Great. Completely useless to the existing code already written in VB, but nevermind. It also became clear to everyone that VB.Net was totally useless. C# is the primary language to develop with in .Net and if you can do the same thing in all .Net languages and they only differ via syntax then why not just use C#? Witness how ActivePerl and Python sank like bricks.

      That isn't to say developing in VB / VB.net was ever a rational or sane thing to do but I don't understand why anyone should complain about Microsoft's support over the years.

      VB was completely sane to develop with, once it got somewhere near good enough around version 5/6. I know it's not fashionable amongst many, but a massive number of business applications were written with it and you didn't have to deal with a lot of time consuming stuff like memory management as you did with C++ or full blown object oriented concepts that you just didn't need most of the time. It was a very sensible thing to develop with for many applications. What Microsoft should have done was implemented and improved classic VB but implemented it on top of .Net so all you needed was a recompile as with previous versions.

    13. Re:I am a Silverlight Developer by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pssst, little word over here. You can't refute an accusation that Microsoft screws over developers by saying that developers who got screwed over by Microsoft were fools.

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  4. Too bad, so sad by msobkow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:Too bad, so sad by Myopic · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've never learned a tool without learning some skills that did apply down the road.

      Congratulations on avoiding VB.

    2. Re:Too bad, so sad by JMZero · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Office Office is going to remain .NET

      Office is not written in .NET. Unless they've made a very big change, it's written in C++, probably with a lot of MFC. ...you could still release cross platform .NET applications.

      Lol, cross platform .NET applications. Also, do you remember .NET controls hosted directly in IE? Neither does MS, despite pushing them for a while. And despite the fact that they had a reasonable security model for trusted interactions (unlike Silverlight).

      If anyone thinks Silverlight isn't going to be a part of IE10 in some capacity they've lost their minds

      Silverlight will probably be supported for a while, but it will slowly get worse. Just like ActiveX. Just like IE-hosted .NET controls. Just like some of the "browser re-use" components (things like custom print templates, and DHTML editing). You're probably too young, but at one point, ActiveX was the egg nog that was in all MS goat milk. Then it wasn't cool. Then it started having problems. Now it's an afterthought that doesn't work and with an incomprehensible magic security model.

      Silverlight will be the same. We're an MS shop, but we didn't drink any of the Silverlight Kool-aid, because it was clearly a tech that wouldn't last. It just didn't bring much to the table. Unless it finds a much better home in mobile or something, it will slowly wither away. .NET itself should remain for a good while, though. It's a decent framework.

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      Let's not stir that bag of worms...
  5. Wow, a new change in MS strategy, not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Windows Phone 7 by donutface · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  7. I'm sure it was just an omission by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .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.

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    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
    1. Re:I'm sure it was just an omission by Tapewolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      I've been in this exact position myself as a Windows Mobile developer. Learning the 8-year, 200'000 line C++ product that I maintain would have to be completely rewritten in C# and/or Silverlight if it was going to run on WP7 was a fun, fun experience and I would not be terribly surprised if Windows Phone 8 ditched that platform for Javascript, just like last time.

  8. Re:Silverlight is a windows/ie only thing by 24-bit+Voxel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  9. Re:Maybe we should take them at their word by miffo.swe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The issue is that its obvious where Microsoft is heading, away from Silverlight and .Net. It gives the same effect as when Elop went out in public proclaiming loud and clear that Nokias Symbian was dead, people stop developing for it and customers stops buying it. As a Silverlight developer you know your days are numbered, you just dont know what that number is.

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    HTTP/1.1 400
  10. .NET isn't going anywhere by flimflammer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  11. Investment in skills? by Angstroem · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, Commodore! How could you let my investment ins skills die on the vine! Bring back the C64 and the Amiga!

  12. Microsoft doesn't have partners by DragonHawk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft doesn't have partners. They have future victims.

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    dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
    I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
  13. Re:Not a matter of caring by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    most users just follow the instructions

    You've never done technical support, have you?

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