

Microsoft are officially doing "lots of stuff" re: the HTML5 Canvas. - f1lt3r
http://processingjs.org/blog/?p=77

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zimbabwe
What's so bad about companies not bullshitting? If Microsoft said "We think
HTML5 isn't worth our time, and we won't lift a finger until we see it picking
up," I'd like them a lot more than when they make empty claims. That way, when
they actually _do_ stuff ( _does_ the IE team do stuff anymore?) I can trust
them and look forward to it happening.

~~~
tpgauthier
Google getting behind HTML 5 is probably going to force Microsoft's hands
quite a bit. I can't imagine Google rolling out a bunch of new RIA features
and having them break in IE, it would look terrible for Microsoft.

~~~
zimbabwe
It's difficult because Google needs to compromise themselves enough to work
for the IE majority. If they break too much then people won't get Chrome.
They'll stop using Google.

~~~
axod
What and start using Bing and Hotmail? get real...

~~~
zimbabwe
That's a stupid argument. Would people stop using Gmail if it refused to work
for IE6/7/8? Yes. They would stop instantly.

Where the hell did Bing come in? Some people use Google Search and Hotmail.
You're not locked into a company. Furthermore, this was never about _search_ ,
this was about more complex applications. If Google Search told you to
download Chrome or else you couldn't use it, you can fucking bet users would
start using Yahoo. Laziness trumps everything else. That's why I use Mibbit
rather than downloading an IRC client.

Hotmail leads Gmail by 13 million uniques. Gmail is the fourth-largest
service. Just because it's the _best_ doesn't mean it's the most _popular_.

Real enough for you?

~~~
axod
No, IMHO they wouldn't. What do you think the browser share is for GMail? I'd
say likely 40% or so on IE at the very most. If that. If they stopped
supporting IE, some of those would stop using gmail, but a large number would
upgrade to a standards compliant browser. They'd still be left with maybe 80%
of their original users.

>> That's why I use Mibbit rather than downloading an IRC client.

You have good taste ;) FYI, On Mibbit, IE usage is at 26%, and falling.

In webapps, IE is a very small minority, and falling fast.

~~~
zimbabwe
But Mibbit appeals to a very niche technical community. Gmail's market share
is less than 20%, if I recall correctly.

A lot of people using IE right now are either forced to use it for corporate
purposes - my mother has to use it on her laptop - or they're completely
illiterate. If something messes up, they'll see it as Gmail breaking.

The solution is graceful degradation, but that won't force people to switch.

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rbanffy
I think we are reading too much from cryptic political messages.

Unless HTML5 and canvas gain a lot of momentum, and Google is doing a lot in
this direction, Microsoft will come up with a broken half-compatible and
quirky implementation geared to badmouth the whole HTML5 thing as they did
with the ODF "support" in Office.

~~~
snprbob86
This is nothing like ODF support...

ODF is an incomplete standard. Spreadsheet formulas, for example, were not
even mentioned when Microsoft started their spec and still aren't even final.
It has been at least two years!

Microsoft created a new standard so that it could satisfy the openness demands
of their customers (i.e. government organizations) while maintaining the
existing level of functionality. Had they waited for the ODF standard, they'd
still be waiting. I think the Office file format team did a stellar job
without an ounce of malice.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
That doesn't even begin to approach reality, and sounds more like a list of
talking points you've picked up from somewhere than a genuine opinion.

I'm getting really sick of Microsoft's new "we can't even begin thinking about
implement anything until after it's a fully approved standard" while churning
out their own proprietary, unstandardized competitors to those same standards.
It's so brazen it's insulting.

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TweedHeads
Canvas and SVG would kill silverlight instantly and that's why M$ will never
implement any of them.

As simple as that.

~~~
snprbob86
Silverlight's killer feature is adaptive video streaming. The current HTML 5
draft states:

" It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the
same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current
players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-
distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development
model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an
additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue
and this section will be updated once more information is available. "

Netflix, MLB, NBC (Olympics), etc choose Silverlight to enable high quality
video streaming while simultaneously supporting lower end connections without
requiring manual quality selection. As far as I know, Flash can't do that and
I don't expect the HTML 5 video element to be able to do it cross-browser and
platform.

Canvas and SVG are nice, but they are hardly enough to kill either of the
popular rich internet application browser plugins. Add in video and ignore a
large pile of existing skill sets; you might have a case against Flash.

Silverlight isn't doing so great because, in true Microsoft fashion, there is
too much complexity. XAML/WPF is a classic inheritance vs composition design
disaster and the learning curve is simply outside of the scope of the average
developer. Blend, however, is an amazing tool and may be able breath some life
into the ecosystem. Silverlight will be the death of Silverlight, not Canvas
or SVG.

~~~
ensignavenger
I really don't see how XAML is that much more complex than SVG, but I'm not
really an expert.

~~~
snprbob86
The basics of both are quite simple and very similar. Once you get into
animation, events, etc, things start getting hairy fast.

XAML was developed for WPF, but in reality, it is completely WPF-agnostic. It
is a serialization format for declaratively constructing .NET object trees. It
also supports several domain specific languages for various shorthands, such
as data binding expressions. This is not unlike the style DSL in SVG, but
these DSLs instantly break toolability unless you manually handle each one.

However, at the developer level, data binding (aka templating) is where the
real complexity explosion is.

You know how there are dozens and dozens of various HTML template engines out
there? It's something that initially seems simple, but everyone has a
different opinion of how it works. The XML-based templating solutions, such as
XSLT, are often considered verbose and cumbersome. Well, all those templating
solutions are only tackling a static, one-way transformation!

XAML's data binding is an DSL-ish XML-based template language which supports
two-way transformations, animation, event handling, runtime modification, and
lots, lots more. It also deeply confuses the structure, and style of the
documents in a way that a few extra divs or spans for the sake of your CSS
doesn't even come close to.

