

Silverlight: Good for Adobe, Bad for Microsoft - bbuffone
http://www.bitsandbuzz.com/article/silverlight-good-for-adobe-bad-for-microsoft/

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WilliamLP
> with SVG, Canvas, Smil, HTML 5, Video, and CSS3

The elephant in the room is that Javascript is just not a good language to
develop in, most especially for the kind of culture and processes that Flash
developers use. It is difficult to maintain, it plays _terribly_ when
different people with different coding styles interact, and most of all it is
extremely browser dependent, in terms of the behaviour you can expect to see,
and equally importantly for the dramatic differences in performance you get.
What do all Javascript libraries have in common? They all provide a twisty
nightmare of little passages when you try to combine more than one with all of
the interactions between global variables and dynamic operations.

Having seen the work process that Flash developers use, I wonder why anyone
can even begin to imagine that some offspring of HTML and Javascript can ever
even begin to make inroads there.

~~~
btipling
I am going to disagree with you. I believe JavaScript is an excellent
language, and as someone has already pointed out, it is based on ECMAScript,
just like ActionScript. For one, it's turing complete, so it's not less
capable than any other turing complete language. Second, JavaScript brackets
and dot syntax will be familiar to any C, C++ or PHP programmer. In addition
JavaScript's asynchronous nature and the extensibility power that prototypes
provide make it a very easy and useful language, capable of creating very
impressive applications. If you add into the mix the fact that it's
standardized, supported by a vast amount of documentation online and powerful
frameworks, known by millions of developers, and backed by corporations such
as Google, Apple, and Microsoft then it becomes hard to dismiss it as a 'not a
good language to develop in.' If your problem is with loosely typed,
interpreted languages that's a different issue. If your problem is cross
browser difference, then diss the browsers, not the language.

I also take issue with frameworks being described as "a twisty nightmare."
Dojo is a joy to work with.

~~~
WilliamLP
> it's turing complete, so it's not less capable than any other turing
> complete language.

Sorry but that's a stupid point that is irrelevant and it amazes me why anyone
would seriously state it, yet many people do. Let's all use Brainfuck then. Or
program in Minesweeper.

Dojo may be nice, but do you use Dojo and JQuery at the same time? Now what if
you also find a nice component that uses Mootools, would you be comfortable
including that too?

~~~
btipling
Turing completeness is only one of a few points I made. I agree if I had only
said it was Turing complete then it would have been stupid.

As for using Dojo and Jquery at the same time, well that's sounds like bad
architecture planning. Would using Coldfusion, PHP and Python in the same file
sound like a great idea? Ok maybe that's a bit much, but how about several
templating systems nested on top of each other in a python app such as mako,
django templates, and clearsilver. Does that sound like a good idea? Don't mix
JavaScript frameworks .

~~~
WilliamLP
Turing completeness is not a point; it's as irrelevant as if you'd said that
it's composed of 1s and 0s.

> Don't mix JavaScript frameworks .

That's my whole point. JQuery should just be for DOM manipulation (not a full
fledged application framework) but the core Javascript library is so terrible
it needs to include things like each, grep, map, and an implementation of
string trim for Pete's sake!

PHP is a terrible language for encapsulation, but at least I have chance if I
want to include more than one PEAR library. Encapsulation is possible - for
instance I can bootstrap a Zend Framework application inside something else
and I know it will work because it uses no global variables and it's simply
not possible to extend the core language.

So what if I use Dojo and do really like a component in JQuery UI? If you
don't think that's a severe and damning limitation then that's a failure of
imagination.

------
rbanffy
"Adobe should rejoice that Microsoft is competing with Adobe on its own turf
(i.e., media plug-ins) rather than putting all its energy, as it once did,
into Web standards and innovation."

Microsoft putting all its strenghts in standards and innovation?! On what
planet does the author live?

~~~
wglb
I was wondering if I was asleep when that happened, cause I sure missed it.
Both parts.

~~~
jeremychone
I am the first to bash Microsoft when they deserve it, but I think that we
should also give credit when due. IE 5 was the most standard compliant browser
on its time, and yes, Microsoft did invented AJAX. So, we could thank them for
that.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I was under the impression that IE5 for Mac (with its Tasman rendering engine)
was the most standard compliant browser at that time.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_(layout_engine)>

And it proved how ahead of its time it was by also being abandoned by
Microsoft before they allowed IE6 to stagnate on Windows when they realised
that good browsers and a viable web weren't in their business interests.

The author is correct that if Micrsoft went full bore for web standards, not
only would they be commiting suicide by undermining their own Office and
desktop OS monopolies, they'd destroy Adobe in the process. Luckily for Adobe
they're not taking that course.

(I really can't tell if you're serious about thanking Microsoft for AJAX,
being forced to build rickety technologies on top of whatever random ActiveX
functionality they leave lying around isn't something I'm thankful for)

------
navid
The article was very interesting. Looking at the issue of the relationship
between Microsoft and Adobe from a new point of view. I agree with the core
concept that silverlight and flash are in one front against fully open
standards like HTML 5. But I think both Microsoft and Adobe are in both sides
of the battle between RIAs using open standards and proprietary plugins. They
know they should contribute to open standards.

