

New York Times abandons WPF and Silverlight in favor of AIR - TomOfTTB
http://weblogs.asp.net/fmarguerie/archive/2009/05/22/new-york-times-abandons-wpf-and-silverlight-in-favor-of-air.aspx

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pj
I am not a Microsoft hater, but I still haven't installed Silverlight. I don't
really like the idea of "web augmentation" through GUI tools. I don't like
flash. I don't like any of them. I think they run contrary to the future of
the web. I believe the web should be designed to run in the browser.

I don't like that flash is so heavily used. I install it, but I don't like it.
I don't use it myself. I think it's just one more vector for viruses, malware,
and little flashy, moving things that distract me from text on the page and
whatever it is I'm trying to do. Of course video and audio is still an issue,
but HTML 5 will solve these problems and hopefully we can stop using flash
too.

The whole point of the web is that it is a standard environment. That we can
build sites and applications that work for everyone, whether or not their
corporation will allow them to install flash or anything else.

~~~
jimbokun
I find this very Stallman-esque.

I recently discovered I can watch many of the games broadcast by ESPN on
ESPN360. Most popular network shows are streamed free from the network sites
or Hulu. I can watch academic lectures in their entirety on YouTube. All on my
Mac.

As a user, I really don't care what the underlying tech is, aside from the
initial annoyance of waiting for Silverlight to install itself (which I did
because it was the only way to watch the Olympics broadcasts).

So "video and audio is still an issue" is an understatement. It seems to be
the main justification for these technologies. Once I can watch all of this
content in my HTML5 browser with no add-ins, I'll agree with you. Until then,
I am perfectly happy to watch video delivered through my browser by Flash,
Silverlight, or whatever other technology as long as it's not a pain to
install and plays nice on my computer.

~~~
wallflower
> As a user, I really don't care what the underlying tech is

This applies for most users. How many Twitter users who use Tweetdeck (which I
argue is the most successful Adobe Air application in terms of daily use) care
that it is Adobe Air?

Or how many iPhone app users care that it is written in Objective-C + Cocoa?
Or how many GMail users wonder about what it is really going on in the Google
cloud? I'm starting to think most users don't care much at all about the
underlying technology as long as it works reliably and performs.

~~~
acdha
I've heard Air as the most common drawback for Tweetdeck - the low-quality
text rendering, non-standard widgets, etc. scream "non-native app" and the
install process is certainly a lot harder if you don't already have Air
installed. Granted, I tend to hang out with geeks and Mac-using designers but
I'm not sure that the general public is _more_ likely to install a runtime
before installing the application they wanted to try.

~~~
stevejalim
I regard installing AIR for the first time one uses an AIR app akin to
installing Flash Player the first time you hit up, say, YouTube on a new/clean
machine. Can't see all tgat much friction there...

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TomOfTTB
People aren't taking much notice of stories like this but I think they should.
Because these stories represent something a lot of people have been waiting
for.

Namely, we're finally getting to the point where developing Windows only apps
is no longer viable.

Even Microsoft essentially knows that now. Silverlight is basically WPF for
the web. It's still has limits but MS is obviously trying to get Silverlight
up to speed as quickly as possible while WPF (technology which only replaced
Windows Forms in the last release) seems to have been all but abandon.

~~~
dantheman
I disagree, I don't know how much we can learn from these stories. If it was a
small company building the technology in question and needed it to work to
survive, we may be able to draw a conclusion, but when it's microsoft and its
still an early release we cannot draw too much from it.

Sure people are not using it now, in a year or two from now the technology may
be better than the Flex/Air paradigm and then we'll have stories about people
leaving Flex for silverlight.

As for your other point: "Developing windows only apps is no longer viable" --
I disagree, there is still a huge market for windows only apps, hell the tools
to build flex/flash/air really only work on windows.

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TomOfTTB
Other than utility companies (Symantec, Trend Micro, etc...) and a handful of
game developers (most have left for Consoles at this point) I don't see anyone
targeting Windows specifically.

Again, I don't think Windows is dead or going away I'm simply saying it
doesn't make sense to develop an app that's only for Windows anymore.

I mean, ask yourself this. If Silverlight can run in it's own Window (which
will be possible as of V3) than why would anyone making a business app using
WPF?

~~~
dantheman
So, I think I agree. Business Apps should be either web apps (HTML/JS) or RIA
(Flex|Air/Silverlight); I think that's a given nowadays.

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felixmar
_Many Apple users don't want to use Microsoft products._

Unlike some Linux users i don't think most Mac users have a strong opinion
about Microsoft. If Microsoft delivers a quality product that works well on
the Mac people will use it. And Silverlight is already one of Microsoft's
better products.

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old-gregg
I code on a Mac, but having spent years on Windows platform, I still believe
Microsoft software is actually by far the best quality product coming out of
big, traditional software shops: their Office, SQL Server, development tools,
all that stuff is nicely written. Windows kernel is also great.

However, my humble anecdotic evidence suggests that most everyday Apple users
are Microsoft converts and they do have very strong feelings associated with
Microsoft brand, but truth be told, MS has nothing to do with their painful
past experiences: crappy 3rd party Windows products pre-infected with adware,
performance-killing pre-installed anti-viruses, flimsy and cheap hardware from
eMachines and the likes, etc.

~~~
DocSavage
That's a good point and is a result of how Microsoft and Apple has positioned
and controlled their products. I've had a good experience developing and using
Microsoft products. So have my hacker friends. My elderly dad, on the other
hand, can't seem to keep his Windows machine running. Over time, it'll become
this bloated, slow machine. I got him an Apple and there are fewer problems.

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jsz0
Technically I don't know how SL stacks up against Air or Flash but it seems
pretty obvious to me it's not a good idea to trust a company that has so much
to gain from making a technology popular and then slowly pulling back support
to promote their operating system & web browser and, by extension, their own
web services.

I don't particularly like Adobe but their cross pollination of Flash to the
Creative Suite is not a deal breaker and they, of course, have every incentive
to make Flash run on Windows, OSX, Linux, mobiles, etc.

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FraaJad
As a mac user I do not mind Silverlight, but if it does not play well with all
the platforms that I use on a regular basis - Mac, Linux & Windows (In that
order), I will never chose to do any new development with Silverlight.

Why chose Silverlight when I can't even test the thing on my Linux dev box?
The support for Flash and Flex is not stellar on Linux either, but there are
workable solutions.

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mellis
As someone who's used both the Silverlight and AIR versions of the Times
Reader (for the Mac), I can say that the AIR version works much better. The
application is more responsive, the window can be any size, the text layout
looks better, etc. Does anyone know if AIR offers technical advantages for
this type of app, or did they just do a better job this time around?

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dchest
I don't think it's a technical issue, and we shouldn't take it into
consideration. AIR/Flash vs. Silverlight is a lot like HD-DVD vs. BluRay, that
is _money_.

Microsoft and Adobe make contracts with large content vendors such as New York
Times to push their technology. This has nothing to do with technology by
itself.

