
Microsoft wrestles with HTML5 vs Silverlight futures - ronnier
http://www.itwriting.com/blog/3127-microsoft-wrestles-with-html5-vs-silverlight-futures.html
======
kenjackson
HTML 5 looks more and more like the Win32 API to me (or x86 assembly). At
first everyone will use it directly. But people will quickly see that its a
bear to be productive with it. Then you'll quickly see new frameworks built
over it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Silverlight eventually simply targeted HTML 5. You
wrote your code in Silverlight and out comes an HTML 5 page.

I'm not really sure what WPFs future is. It's great technology, but the
desktop is increasingly niche.

~~~
bad_user
> _I wouldn't be surprised if Silverlight eventually simply targeted HTML 5._

No, that's not possible, as HTML5 is pretty incompatible with Silverlight's
selling points.

Besides, the article is flamebait ... Silverlight will be the native API
people are going to use for building native-clients on Windows desktops /
Windows mobile phones. Add to that list portability Symbian, MeeGo and
probably Android.

Silverlight also has a more efficient VM than Flash or the various mobile-
browsers, so if they play this card right, it could actually be efficient when
running on mobile phones ... windows mobile 7 is actually using Silverlight
for its UI ... and from early reports, the interface is snappy.

~~~
kenjackson
Why is it not possible to target HTML5 from Silverlight? You may have to tweak
Silverlight some, but it seems doable?

You map the styles to CSS. The Xaml to HTML (I'd love to have Silverlight
layout in HTML). Although the Xaml also includes stuff that you need to map to
Javascript as well. The C# code gets mapped to Javascript.

You'd have to map all of the things like databinding, DeepZoom, and animation
specially crafted Javascript. Audio, video, WCF, may have to be scaled back
for targeting HTML5. But then you can have two versions "Silverlight HTML5"
and "FullPower Silverlight".

I'm sure there is tons I missed. But what do you think in particular can't be
mapped from Silverlight to HTML?

~~~
deno
Microsoft Live Labs is kind of doing this with Volta.

~~~
bad_user
Volta is dead.

~~~
deno
Maybe? Well I don't know politics, but they did some solid work that ended up
with a paper. Since Volta was not a product but an experiment I would suggest
it doesn't make it unlikely, that research could be used to create similar
product in the future. It seems potentially like a good fit.

------
Qz
[http://www.itwriting.com/blog/3131-more-on-microsofts-
diffic...](http://www.itwriting.com/blog/3131-more-on-microsofts-difficult-
choices-wpf-silverlight-html-5.html)

Expanded analysis with explanations for those who don't know what this is
about.

------
prodigal_erik
Properly written semantic HTML5 is a progressive enhancement from HTML4. With
Silverlight (or Flash) the documents would just about have to be implemented
twice, and few authors have the diligence to actually do that.

------
jinushaun
Pretty damning, but it's true that both WPF and its cousin Silverlight have
failed to gain traction both on the web and on the desktop. WPF is dead, but
Silverlight will be with us for at least a while thanks to WP7.

~~~
hvs
Well, since VS2010's interface is written in WPF, it'll have to stick around
as long as that is true. Plus, Microsoft never kills a technology, they just
don't improve it.

------
Ocho-Bits
How are they gonna replace WPF with HTML5? I don't get it.

~~~
mattmanser
It mentions it in the article, extend HTML5 with a Windows API.

They did it before with HTML, was it HTAs? You could make controls that did
crazy stuff. I can't remember the name now, my old work had a few from the
days when there was no browser but IE.

------
Kilimanjaro
At the end HTML wins. Flash and silverlight lose.

A victory we all celebrate.

~~~
tomjen3
No not really - I would be much happier if browsers used Silverlight (or
rather the tech behind), since it is much better than the cooked together mess
that is HTML. The only thing necessary would be an open-source renderer that
worked equally well on all platforms.

But given that that is not going to happen, I am rooting for HTML5.

------
InclinedPlane
Silverlight is a neat technology but ultimately they limited it to just a box
on a page, and in that realm it becomes just another flash substitute.

~~~
deno
Or canvas substitute. SVG/VML is the technology that actually augments HTML
documents. Canvas is just super-slow Flash/Silverlight-like pixel renderer, a
“box on a page”, as you said.

~~~
InclinedPlane
There is a barrier between a Flash/Silverlight app and the remainder of the
page, that's not true for the JS code driving a canvas element, it's the same
code that drives all of the interactivity on the page. This makes a
difference.

~~~
deno
Why, you can interact with Flash/Silverlight embedded object as well. (A
perfect example is using Flash to fake Websockets) And both support
Javascript. There's really not much difference.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yes, I concede, you are right. That's how everybody uses Flash and
Silverlight, by driving it externally using javascript.

Are you being serious or just a troll? There are holes in the wall between
Flash/Silverlight and web pages, but there is very much a wall.

~~~
deno
Oh come on.

Silverlight let you do things like take a code fragment from HTML page,
interpret it and let it execute commands against browser's DOM. (See:
<http://www.silverlight.net/learn/dynamic-languages/>).

DojoX GFX (similar to Rapchaël) emulates even SVG drawing using Silverlight
object.

And Flash let's you call any Javascript function from ActionScript and an
ActionScript function from Javascript.

You must be dreaming up those walls. Or is it just FUD spreading?

~~~
InclinedPlane
This is why there's so terribly many flash/silverlight apps driven by external
javascript? And why, on average, there's so very much cohesion between
flash/silverlight objects and the pages they live with in?

In practice, the wall clearly exists. The average flash/silverlight app is an
alien box sitting amidst its host page, with very few and generally
comparatively minor exceptions.

~~~
deno
You claim that less than expected (by you?) people use available technology in
such and such way and thus that imply that there's something wrong with
technology?

I would suggest there's really not so much use cases for
Flash/Silverlight—HTML in-page communication. Or maybe some people just don't
know their tools very much? None of these would be solved by creating another
similar technology.

EDIT: Just look at the new HN top story for an example of JS-Flash
interaction: <http://feross.net/instant/> :)

------
yekmer
They should be kidding. They understand nothing about web and open standards.
That is why they loose.

