Open plea for wpf / silverlight's future
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If Microsoft started a massive effort to come up with a kick ass development environment and tools targetting HTML 5 and *all* hardware platforms suitable for doing line of business apps then I'd be firmly in your camp. I absolutely detest the fact that we can't write an app and run it everywhere, anything less is completely illogical but unfortunately that's just the way it is. I'm hedging my bets and making a wpf / silverlight and html 5 interface for the app I'm working on now just to be on the safe side.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
we can't write an app and run it everywhere
Yes we can. It's called HTML+CSS+JavaScript. We can do it now. We build two quite large web applications and we support something like 94% of the users, according to the latest browser market share stats. If only we could get rid of IE6 and we'd be at 100%. One codebase, unlimited platforms. Of course we don't target mobile devices (yet) but simply because, in our case, it doesn't make sense to use our applications on a tiny screen with a tiny keyboard. But, I guarantee that there is very little you can't do in HTML when talking about business and productivity applications for desktop and even pad users. Mobile phones are another story, but after all there's only so much you can do on a tiny screen - regardless of how the application is built. Even so, I find lots of good mobile web apps. Flickr, for example, is excellent.
If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe, but not a personality. [Charlie Brooker] ScrewTurn Wiki, Software Localization Tools & Services and My Blog
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I saw a small discussion on this issue here a couple of days ago and apparently no one was very concerned despite the growing evidence that there is more than smoke to this which makes me wonder what exactly people are coding in for a living these days. Anyway for anyone who actually makes a living with these tools and who would like some clarity from Microsoft, this guy is asking for it: http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/t/230744.aspx[^]
There is no failure only feedback
Unfortunately I can't go into some of the details of discussions that I have had with actual MS staffers working on the SL/WPF teams, but it was this mass panic that led me to write this[^] post. The problem with the demonstration is simple; they were demoing new technology - from a marketing point of view, there's no excitement in saying "your old stuff will continue to run". In typical MS evangelism terms, this is a marketing SNAFU, it's not a developer FUBAR. Your .NET investment is safe, will continue to be safe for a very long time. As a dev, I'm excited about being able to write code that works on an ARM tablet, and that also runs on my desktop PC. The same people complaining about having to work with the Metro UI are now complaining about having to write JavaScript - if you don't want to, you don't have to; that is not going to change. There have been comments that WPF is no longer being actively developed, and I was worried about this for a while until someone I trust very much reassured me that the slower release cycle on WPF did not mean that it was no longer getting the love; it's a mature platform now, so exciting new features are fewer and further apart. Instead, smaller tweaks and enhancements are taking place on it, some of which are absolutely fantastic. I'm giving nothing away here when I tell you that there are going to be enhancements to the data binding engine, and that the airspace issue is being sorted out at long last.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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I saw a small discussion on this issue here a couple of days ago and apparently no one was very concerned despite the growing evidence that there is more than smoke to this which makes me wonder what exactly people are coding in for a living these days. Anyway for anyone who actually makes a living with these tools and who would like some clarity from Microsoft, this guy is asking for it: http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/t/230744.aspx[^]
There is no failure only feedback
There is only so much room for facebook and twitter clones in html and js. The majority needs more power, so .NET and Silverlight will stay alive *crossing fingers*.
Wout
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Unfortunately I can't go into some of the details of discussions that I have had with actual MS staffers working on the SL/WPF teams, but it was this mass panic that led me to write this[^] post. The problem with the demonstration is simple; they were demoing new technology - from a marketing point of view, there's no excitement in saying "your old stuff will continue to run". In typical MS evangelism terms, this is a marketing SNAFU, it's not a developer FUBAR. Your .NET investment is safe, will continue to be safe for a very long time. As a dev, I'm excited about being able to write code that works on an ARM tablet, and that also runs on my desktop PC. The same people complaining about having to work with the Metro UI are now complaining about having to write JavaScript - if you don't want to, you don't have to; that is not going to change. There have been comments that WPF is no longer being actively developed, and I was worried about this for a while until someone I trust very much reassured me that the slower release cycle on WPF did not mean that it was no longer getting the love; it's a mature platform now, so exciting new features are fewer and further apart. Instead, smaller tweaks and enhancements are taking place on it, some of which are absolutely fantastic. I'm giving nothing away here when I tell you that there are going to be enhancements to the data binding engine, and that the airspace issue is being sorted out at long last.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
It'd be nice if they fixed the hideous bugs in WPF at some point....
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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It'd be nice if they fixed the hideous bugs in WPF at some point....
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
At least some are being fixed.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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Unfortunately I can't go into some of the details of discussions that I have had with actual MS staffers working on the SL/WPF teams, but it was this mass panic that led me to write this[^] post. The problem with the demonstration is simple; they were demoing new technology - from a marketing point of view, there's no excitement in saying "your old stuff will continue to run". In typical MS evangelism terms, this is a marketing SNAFU, it's not a developer FUBAR. Your .NET investment is safe, will continue to be safe for a very long time. As a dev, I'm excited about being able to write code that works on an ARM tablet, and that also runs on my desktop PC. The same people complaining about having to work with the Metro UI are now complaining about having to write JavaScript - if you don't want to, you don't have to; that is not going to change. There have been comments that WPF is no longer being actively developed, and I was worried about this for a while until someone I trust very much reassured me that the slower release cycle on WPF did not mean that it was no longer getting the love; it's a mature platform now, so exciting new features are fewer and further apart. Instead, smaller tweaks and enhancements are taking place on it, some of which are absolutely fantastic. I'm giving nothing away here when I tell you that there are going to be enhancements to the data binding engine, and that the airspace issue is being sorted out at long last.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
from a marketing point of view, there's no excitement in saying "your old stuff will continue to run"
The stupidest marketer in the world would probably still have been able to summon up the neurons required to include one sentence along the lines of "In addition to the great platforms of silverlight wpf blah blah we now will support this...." Honestly if not one person involved could have forseen this issue after the last time they pulled this stunt you have to start wondering if it's really possible for this big a company to be so abjectly incompetent or is there actually fire where all this smoke keeps coming from. I don't buy it sorry. No one is that incompetent, they just can't be. If the best info we can get on this is supposed to be from private discussions with insiders in M.S. I'm not in any sense of the world relieved, only more disquieted by your post.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
here have been comments that WPF is no longer being actively developed, and I was worried about this for a while until someone I trust very much reassured me that the slower release cycle on WPF did not mean that it was no longer getting the love; it's a mature platform now, so exciting new features are fewer and further apart.
Sure, did you honestly believe that or were you just hoping? :) Seriously are you familiar at all with WPF? Maturity is pretty fucking far from how I'd describe it.
There is no failure only feedback
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There is only so much room for facebook and twitter clones in html and js. The majority needs more power, so .NET and Silverlight will stay alive *crossing fingers*.
Wout
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Business people unfortunately can't get by on crossed fingers, we need certainty and clarity and without it we will go where we can get it.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
without it we will go where we can get it.
just curious where that is.... seems to me thats its MS and their constant flubs, uncertainty, or Isheeple with their nazi attitudes over what we can and cant do with our their pcs that they were so gracious as to let us mortals buy from them for insane prices. One thing is for certain, whatever MS does, a very large portion of the population will still be using it for decades to come. I'm not to worried though, unless you are running on the cutting edge, hell people will still be using xp or weven for a few more years yet. they can play with 8 all they want for the masses, by the time companies(especially smaller to midsized ones with limited tech budgets) upgrade past weven, they will be on version 12 anyway :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
from a marketing point of view, there's no excitement in saying "your old stuff will continue to run"
The stupidest marketer in the world would probably still have been able to summon up the neurons required to include one sentence along the lines of "In addition to the great platforms of silverlight wpf blah blah we now will support this...." Honestly if not one person involved could have forseen this issue after the last time they pulled this stunt you have to start wondering if it's really possible for this big a company to be so abjectly incompetent or is there actually fire where all this smoke keeps coming from. I don't buy it sorry. No one is that incompetent, they just can't be. If the best info we can get on this is supposed to be from private discussions with insiders in M.S. I'm not in any sense of the world relieved, only more disquieted by your post.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
here have been comments that WPF is no longer being actively developed, and I was worried about this for a while until someone I trust very much reassured me that the slower release cycle on WPF did not mean that it was no longer getting the love; it's a mature platform now, so exciting new features are fewer and further apart.
Sure, did you honestly believe that or were you just hoping? :) Seriously are you familiar at all with WPF? Maturity is pretty fucking far from how I'd describe it.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
Seriously are you familiar at all with WPF?
John. How long have I been here? You still don't know that I'm a f***ing WPF developer? While I'm the first to admit that WPF is not the platform I'd hoped it could be, the fixes that are going in there can't compare to the frantic release cycle of SL because SL was playing catch up. Go on, what would you put into WPF that's new? My list of features are fixes rather than completely new functionality. Frankly, the level of FUD that is being spread is just irresponsible. Win 8 has already been demoed running traditional desktop applications. We have heard many times that different MS technologies are dead, and yet they still go on. MFC is dead. Ooh look it's still going strong. COM is dead. Guess what, Win8 will have uprated COM. Visual Basic is dead... ooh look it's still going. The list goes on. Still, if you want to spread more of this "the sky is falling" then fly at it. While you are panicking, I'm going to be happily continuing to develop in WPF and Silverlight.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
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John C wrote:
without it we will go where we can get it.
just curious where that is.... seems to me thats its MS and their constant flubs, uncertainty, or Isheeple with their nazi attitudes over what we can and cant do with our their pcs that they were so gracious as to let us mortals buy from them for insane prices. One thing is for certain, whatever MS does, a very large portion of the population will still be using it for decades to come. I'm not to worried though, unless you are running on the cutting edge, hell people will still be using xp or weven for a few more years yet. they can play with 8 all they want for the masses, by the time companies(especially smaller to midsized ones with limited tech budgets) upgrade past weven, they will be on version 12 anyway :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success
gavindon wrote:
hell people will still be using xp or weven for a few more years yet
My organization has a 6 year upgrade cycle that flows throughout the company. People will only get a new OS with a new machine. I got a new machine last month. It has XP on it. Therefore, 5+ years from now I will still be on XP with IE6. (don't know whether to put a smiley face because I proved your point, or a sad face because I proved your point)
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If Microsoft started a massive effort to come up with a kick ass development environment and tools targetting HTML 5 and *all* hardware platforms suitable for doing line of business apps then I'd be firmly in your camp. I absolutely detest the fact that we can't write an app and run it everywhere, anything less is completely illogical but unfortunately that's just the way it is. I'm hedging my bets and making a wpf / silverlight and html 5 interface for the app I'm working on now just to be on the safe side.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
I absolutely detest the fact that we can't write an app and run it everywhere
Yeah - bring back Java!
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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No one is suggesting they are going away completely. What is being suggested is they are being deprecated, actually that's not a suggestion, they clearly *are* deprecating silverlight and WPF in particular, they've announced it with the windows 8 stuff.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
they clearly *are* deprecating silverlight and WPF in particular, they've announced it with the windows 8 stuff
Where did they announce that? Link?
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gavindon wrote:
hell people will still be using xp or weven for a few more years yet
My organization has a 6 year upgrade cycle that flows throughout the company. People will only get a new OS with a new machine. I got a new machine last month. It has XP on it. Therefore, 5+ years from now I will still be on XP with IE6. (don't know whether to put a smiley face because I proved your point, or a sad face because I proved your point)
i worked for one company that would get a newer machine and downgrade the OS to xp because all their other machines used it.
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success
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John C wrote:
Seriously are you familiar at all with WPF?
John. How long have I been here? You still don't know that I'm a f***ing WPF developer? While I'm the first to admit that WPF is not the platform I'd hoped it could be, the fixes that are going in there can't compare to the frantic release cycle of SL because SL was playing catch up. Go on, what would you put into WPF that's new? My list of features are fixes rather than completely new functionality. Frankly, the level of FUD that is being spread is just irresponsible. Win 8 has already been demoed running traditional desktop applications. We have heard many times that different MS technologies are dead, and yet they still go on. MFC is dead. Ooh look it's still going strong. COM is dead. Guess what, Win8 will have uprated COM. Visual Basic is dead... ooh look it's still going. The list goes on. Still, if you want to spread more of this "the sky is falling" then fly at it. While you are panicking, I'm going to be happily continuing to develop in WPF and Silverlight.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Frankly, the level of FUD that is being spread is just irresponsible
Exactly, when will Microsoft *stop* and just come out and say what their strategy is going forward? So far all they've given us is FUD and they are failing big time at what should be P.R. 101.
There is no failure only feedback
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John C wrote:
I absolutely detest the fact that we can't write an app and run it everywhere
Yeah - bring back Java!
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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John C wrote:
without it we will go where we can get it.
just curious where that is.... seems to me thats its MS and their constant flubs, uncertainty, or Isheeple with their nazi attitudes over what we can and cant do with our their pcs that they were so gracious as to let us mortals buy from them for insane prices. One thing is for certain, whatever MS does, a very large portion of the population will still be using it for decades to come. I'm not to worried though, unless you are running on the cutting edge, hell people will still be using xp or weven for a few more years yet. they can play with 8 all they want for the masses, by the time companies(especially smaller to midsized ones with limited tech budgets) upgrade past weven, they will be on version 12 anyway :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success
gavindon wrote:
just curious where that is.
It's more a state of mind than anything else initially. It's taking the frame of mind that we can not depend on Microsoft going forward and should look to ourselves. It's deciding that we need to have as little exposure as possible to 3rd party private software. I've already taken this position with 3rd party component libraries for the next major release of our software which we're making every effort possible to not use 3rd party component libraries. It's essentially taking back control in house as much as possible. That gives me certainty, knowing I'm in control of what's happening going forward.
There is no failure only feedback
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gavindon wrote:
just curious where that is.
It's more a state of mind than anything else initially. It's taking the frame of mind that we can not depend on Microsoft going forward and should look to ourselves. It's deciding that we need to have as little exposure as possible to 3rd party private software. I've already taken this position with 3rd party component libraries for the next major release of our software which we're making every effort possible to not use 3rd party component libraries. It's essentially taking back control in house as much as possible. That gives me certainty, knowing I'm in control of what's happening going forward.
There is no failure only feedback
I can pretty much agree with you there. I try to stay away from 3rd party addons as they have had a tendency to break and be just a flat PITA. I'd rather build everything I use(within reasonable limits of course) then I know what it does and how to fix it. Point in case, the current intranet app here where I work was designed by somebody else. He used some 3rd party libraries and functionality which have now decided to not work very well. I am fighting the wolves trying to figure out how to get my net working properly again.(to remove his crap will consist of a fairly heavy rework of the entire project, which is actually in the works for the near future but for now its march on.)
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success
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Ok, let's just take it as given I meant *properly* not half-assedly. :)
There is no failure only feedback
:-D
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Frankly, the level of FUD that is being spread is just irresponsible
Exactly, when will Microsoft *stop* and just come out and say what their strategy is going forward? So far all they've given us is FUD and they are failing big time at what should be P.R. 101.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
failing big time at what should be P.R. 101.
maybe the problem is that MS has for too long watched Apple tell people what they will like and not like, its rubbing off on them. The idea of, this is what is, we know you will still use it so get bent if you don't like what we say.
Programming is a race between programmers trying to build bigger and better idiot proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots, so far... the universe is winning. A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success
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Unfortunately I can't go into some of the details of discussions that I have had with actual MS staffers working on the SL/WPF teams, but it was this mass panic that led me to write this[^] post. The problem with the demonstration is simple; they were demoing new technology - from a marketing point of view, there's no excitement in saying "your old stuff will continue to run". In typical MS evangelism terms, this is a marketing SNAFU, it's not a developer FUBAR. Your .NET investment is safe, will continue to be safe for a very long time. As a dev, I'm excited about being able to write code that works on an ARM tablet, and that also runs on my desktop PC. The same people complaining about having to work with the Metro UI are now complaining about having to write JavaScript - if you don't want to, you don't have to; that is not going to change. There have been comments that WPF is no longer being actively developed, and I was worried about this for a while until someone I trust very much reassured me that the slower release cycle on WPF did not mean that it was no longer getting the love; it's a mature platform now, so exciting new features are fewer and further apart. Instead, smaller tweaks and enhancements are taking place on it, some of which are absolutely fantastic. I'm giving nothing away here when I tell you that there are going to be enhancements to the data binding engine, and that the airspace issue is being sorted out at long last.
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility
For everyone out there that says that WPF is dead, I'd like them to qualify that: dead how? If Windows 8, and by extension, Windows 'Tablet' are supporting HTML5, then please show me the HTML5 for the Metro UI demos that have been shown on the web in the last couple of weeks. There has been so much baseless FUD on various sites for quite a long time now. Based on the public facts we know: windows phone 7 uses xaml and .net for UI layout and functionality, the animation effects are xaml based, windows 8/tablet has tiles, and the new xbox interface has tiles. Would you base your next billion-dollar OS on an incomplete standard, or on something you own, control, and is complete specified? I think it's fair to say that xaml and .net, and by extension, wpf and silverlight are far from 'dead'. By the same metric, MFC has been dead for 10 years. Precisely as Pete says above, WPF is a mature platform and on a slower release cycle, it's not dead, and certainly not an ex-parrot.
Regards, Barry