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."

Comments

Evil overlord's minions demand more evil.

[Alex Belits]

A much better headline.

Re:Evil overlord's minions demand more evil.

[Andy Dodd]

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.

in other news...

[s4m7]

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

Re:in other news...

[icannotthinkofaname]

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"?

Re:in other news...

[Yvan256]

Yeah, those 23 guys are gonna be pissed!

Re:in other news...

[jason.sweet]

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

I am a Silverlight Developer

[iONiUM]

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.

Re:I am a Silverlight Developer

[tokul]

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.

Re:I am a Silverlight Developer

[Necroman]

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.

Re:I am a Silverlight Developer

[jrumney]

... 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.

Re:I am a Silverlight Developer

[inglorion_on_the_net]

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

Re:I am a Silverlight Developer

[shmlco]

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....

Re:I am a Silverlight Developer

[mcrbids]

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...

Too bad, so sad

[msobkow]

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.

Re:Too bad, so sad

[Myopic]

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

Congratulations on avoiding VB.

Wow, a new change in MS strategy, not

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Windows Phone 7

[donutface]

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.

I'm sure it was just an omission

[YesIAmAScript]

.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.

Re:Maybe we should take them at their word

[miffo.swe]

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.

.NET isn't going anywhere

[flimflammer]

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.

Investment in skills?

[Angstroem]

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

Microsoft doesn't have partners

[DragonHawk]

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