Thoughts on Flash
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What CSS gives me is the ability to change the layout just by changing a CSS file. Sites such as http://csszengarden.com/[^] are possible with that. If that is not your intention HTML still provides tabular layout. In XAML you do not have that option without rewriting a major portion of your markup.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
What CSS gives me is the ability to change the layout just by changing a CSS file
The idea is good - they just screwed the implementation badly.
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I said MonoTouch does not break the licensing agreement, I did not say that Flash does not break the licensing agreement. Monotouch and Flash CS5 for iPhone work differently. In case of Monotouch code gets converted to Objective-C and gets compiled in the same way as regular Objective-C code gets compiled. Looking at the executable you cannot say whether the code was written using MonoTouch or not. However, in the now abandoned Flash CS5 for iPhone, people developed Flash applications which ran on a separate run time. Flash runtime did all the rendering: you cannot use any native controls or APIs.
That's intriguing. So you're saying MonoTouch is not a cross-compiler? It generates object-code? (excuse my ignorance, I haven't looked into this). But I thought the Ipod/Iphone/Ipad chip was proprietary (we'll I have heard it said that was really a beefed-up ARM design). I thought the specs of this chip were never released, so how does Mono generate code for it (If it's not a CLI interpreter, but I thought interpreters were also banned cfr:java?)
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Well said, and I agree completely. However, it looks like for the Windows Phone 7, we may see the same business model as for IPhone...
Michel Godfroid wrote:
it looks like for the Windows Phone 7, we may see the same business model
Really !? :doh: I hope they have more sense than that. I haven't read much about the Win phones yet. I understand the recommended route is to develop silverlight apps for it?
Simon
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Shog9 wrote:
HTML+JS+CSS
They were pushing it in the version 1.0 of iPhone till everyone complained and they caved in and exposed the native SDK. BTW: HTML5 and CSS3 animations and rendering are all hardware accelerated on the iPhone.
Yes, and nobody coded for it... Now to be honest, it seems like Chrome OS is taking the same restrictive route :-)
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Shog9 wrote:
HTML+JS+CSS
They were pushing it in the version 1.0 of iPhone till everyone complained and they caved in and exposed the native SDK. BTW: HTML5 and CSS3 animations and rendering are all hardware accelerated on the iPhone.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
They were pushing it in the version 1.0 of iPhone till everyone complained and they caved in and exposed the native SDK.
Yup. And now it's the ghetto where Google Voice lives, eh? :rolleyes: I hate Flash. I will not be sad to see it die. But it's a shame that the death-blow will come from an even more closed platform.
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
What CSS gives me is the ability to change the layout just by changing a CSS file
The idea is good - they just screwed the implementation badly.
There might be some issues here and there but compared to XAML in its current form, I will prefer CSS any day.
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That's intriguing. So you're saying MonoTouch is not a cross-compiler? It generates object-code? (excuse my ignorance, I haven't looked into this). But I thought the Ipod/Iphone/Ipad chip was proprietary (we'll I have heard it said that was really a beefed-up ARM design). I thought the specs of this chip were never released, so how does Mono generate code for it (If it's not a CLI interpreter, but I thought interpreters were also banned cfr:java?)
MonoTouch C# code get converted to Objective-C code which links with mono touch library to generated the executable. Flash CS5 for iPhone Flash Code and Flash runtime gets combined into a application package. At runtime, the flash runtime runs the flash code.
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
They were pushing it in the version 1.0 of iPhone till everyone complained and they caved in and exposed the native SDK.
Yup. And now it's the ghetto where Google Voice lives, eh? :rolleyes: I hate Flash. I will not be sad to see it die. But it's a shame that the death-blow will come from an even more closed platform.
Shog9 wrote:
Yup. And now it's the ghetto where Google Voice lives, eh?
Yes and it works amazingly well. In my opinion lot of apps on the App store can just be written as web applications.
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MonoTouch C# code get converted to Objective-C code which links with mono touch library to generated the executable. Flash CS5 for iPhone Flash Code and Flash runtime gets combined into a application package. At runtime, the flash runtime runs the flash code.
I see, so cross compilers are allowed the (the mono thing), but flash is really partially interpreted, and so breaks the license agreement. Thanks!
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ragnaroknrol wrote:
The point was to have developers not be subject to 3rd party adoption of new stuff.
I sorry, but this argument that SteveJ keeps putting across is complete garbage. Not every developer wants to take advantage of every cutting edge platform feature. Sometimes I'm more interested in cross platform development. If I'm making an application I might want it to run in several different places. The point is that the choice should be up to me as a developer, not Apple or Steve. If I want to use a framework that is cross platform, that caters to the "lowest common denominator" then that is my choice. What Apple have done is removed the choice and made the only option to write my application multiple times. Yes, some developers will choose to code against the raw APIs, because they want cutting edge features. It's the same in Windows. If you want access to the latest APIs for the latest platform you will probably have to go to C++ and COM API's. .Net tends to lag behind. The fact is that what Apple should have done was put out a statement encouraging developers to developer directly for the IPhone without a framework and list all their reasons why. If developers agreed they would have done what Apple asked, purely for the right reasons. Some wouldn't have, but some might have had very good reasons for using a framework. Instead, they haven't even tried to put their argument across in a open and frank manor, they've just thrown their toys out the pram and demanded that everyone do it their way or no way. Steve's argument that they want to protect the platform and developers is rubbish, they just want to encourage lock in to their platform. They want to discourage cross platform apps.
Simon
Simon P Stevens wrote:
The point is that the choice should be up to me as a developer, not Apple or Steve.
Oh! you do have a choice, do not develop for that platform.
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There might be some issues here and there but compared to XAML in its current form, I will prefer CSS any day.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
some issues
Only one issue: it is fundamentally broken. Using hacks like margin-left is a horrible way to define columns. Things like fonts and colors, sure, but they really screwed with the layout. Compare it with XAML:
<Grid ShowGridLines="True">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="146" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="146" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="135" />
<RowDefinition Height="135" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
< /Grid > -
I fully agree with what Steve says about how openness and standards are important, if not critical. I've said similar myself before and I'm fully in support of not-supporting flash. Unfortunately with Apple's decision only a few weeks ago to change their AppStore licensing agreement to require the use of Apple's propriety toolset (and forbidding anything 3rd party like MonoTouch) they are just as bad, if not worse than Adobe. What a hypocrite. Shut up Steve, fix your own company's business practises before you criticize others. Personally I will never buy an apple product until they change their practises and treat developers with respect.
Simon
Look below, apparently Monotouch is allowed. The things not allowed are things which cheat and aren't compiled into Objective C. Adobe tried to get flash on the iPhone by making a sloppy hack. They stopped that without stopping people from writing code and porting code to be native.
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Thoughts on Flash[^] by Steve Jobs Love him or hate him but IMHO he's got this one right. Thoughts?
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
some issues
Only one issue: it is fundamentally broken. Using hacks like margin-left is a horrible way to define columns. Things like fonts and colors, sure, but they really screwed with the layout. Compare it with XAML:
<Grid ShowGridLines="True">
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="146" />
<ColumnDefinition Width="146" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="135" />
<RowDefinition Height="135" />
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
< /Grid >Let's analyze it: 1. With your XAML code the only way to modify the layout is to rewrite the markup. If you want something similar in HTML, you can use tables: <table> <col width="146" /> <col style="width:146px" /> <tr height="135"> ... </tr> <tr style="height:146px"> ... </tr> </table> The only reason to use CSS layouts, is flexibility (which you don't have with XAML layouts without major changes). For instance in my article: Building a Web Message Board using Visual Studio 2008, Part I - The Basic Message Board[^]. I can have 3 different layouts by just changing the CSS file: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/VS2008MessageBoard1/SiteWithOutlookTheme.JPG[^] http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/VS2008Messageboard1/SiteWithFloatingTheme.JPG[^] http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/VS2008Messageboard1/MessageASPX.PNG[^].
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Shog9 wrote:
Yup. And now it's the ghetto where Google Voice lives, eh?
Yes and it works amazingly well. In my opinion lot of apps on the App store can just be written as web applications.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Yes and it works amazingly well.
Apart from the whole, "can't access the contact list" part I'm sure. ;) Interestingly though, the GV web app also works quite well on my Pre. As do many fine mobile sites that have adapted to fit the iPhone. There's something to be said for letting a 3rd-party layer of software come between the platform and the developer...
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Yes and it works amazingly well.
Apart from the whole, "can't access the contact list" part I'm sure. ;) Interestingly though, the GV web app also works quite well on my Pre. As do many fine mobile sites that have adapted to fit the iPhone. There's something to be said for letting a 3rd-party layer of software come between the platform and the developer...
Shog9 wrote:
"can't access the contact list
Oh! my contact list is already on Google and I use the Google's Activesync implementation to use Mail and Calendar to my phone as if they come from Exchange. So I guess I never really suffered from that. But I do get your point, if I had not used Google contacts on the phone too, it would have been different.
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Shog9 wrote:
"can't access the contact list
Oh! my contact list is already on Google and I use the Google's Activesync implementation to use Mail and Calendar to my phone as if they come from Exchange. So I guess I never really suffered from that. But I do get your point, if I had not used Google contacts on the phone too, it would have been different.
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Michel Godfroid wrote:
it looks like for the Windows Phone 7, we may see the same business model
Really !? :doh: I hope they have more sense than that. I haven't read much about the Win phones yet. I understand the recommended route is to develop silverlight apps for it?
Simon
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Let's analyze it: 1. With your XAML code the only way to modify the layout is to rewrite the markup. If you want something similar in HTML, you can use tables: <table> <col width="146" /> <col style="width:146px" /> <tr height="135"> ... </tr> <tr style="height:146px"> ... </tr> </table> The only reason to use CSS layouts, is flexibility (which you don't have with XAML layouts without major changes). For instance in my article: Building a Web Message Board using Visual Studio 2008, Part I - The Basic Message Board[^]. I can have 3 different layouts by just changing the CSS file: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/VS2008MessageBoard1/SiteWithOutlookTheme.JPG[^] http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/VS2008Messageboard1/SiteWithFloatingTheme.JPG[^] http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/VS2008Messageboard1/MessageASPX.PNG[^].
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
With your XAML code the only way to modify the layout is to rewrite the markup
But "markup" here does not mean content, unlike with HTML+CSS. XAML can be used to define layout and no content, just like CSS, only with much easier and more logical syntax. What is preventing me from using the same XAML to display various content? I just set the content with the code-behind.
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Michel Godfroid wrote:
it looks like for the Windows Phone 7, we may see the same business model
Really !? :doh: I hope they have more sense than that. I haven't read much about the Win phones yet. I understand the recommended route is to develop silverlight apps for it?
Simon
Silverlight, yes but Silverlight does not expose any of the platform features. If you want to get at those, you'll need the XNA toolkit, or the game development kit, which I'm not even sure will exist on the phone. Look at the XBOX model:, sure you can get XNA, but you only distribute your app through the XBOX store, and the whole thing is DRM'ed. If you want to do some serious game development, you need a separate game developers license, which probably costs you a mortgage.
