6 ms·

New York Times abandons WPF and Silverlight in favor of AIR

52 points by TomOfTTB 17y ago

TomOfTTB 17y ago
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.
- smhinsey 17y ago
  what makes you say that WPF has been all but abandoned? the upcoming visual studio 10 release has a WPF based editor.
  - TomOfTTB 17y ago
    The fact that there are like...10 books total on it. That the MS people I talk to no longer evangelize it. Or the fact that Microsoft is trying very hard to build Silverlight into a viable competitor as quickly as possible. Take your pick. (For the record, I don't think Microsoft will ever actually abandon it completely because they need to have something native. But for 95% of developers WPF just doesn't make sense anymore)
    - smhinsey 17y ago
      I am not totally convinced that WPF & Silverlight are even in competition with one another. They are both based on the same core technology, XAML. Without knowing what Microsoft's long term plans (presuming they have them) for the two technologies, it's hard to say with any certainty whether or not they intend to converge the two eventually or phase one out in favor of the other. I am not really sure how great of an indicators book are. All of the "usual suspect" publishers either have books on the topic or are working on them.
      - TomOfTTB 17y ago
        What I'm saying is I don't think it matters what Microsoft is going to do. With XNA being the way to write games now and Silverlight V3 looking like it can do everything WPF can (in a (theoretically) multi-platform enviornment to boot) why would anyone choose WPF? As for books, the fact that there are already dramatically more Silverlight books out there and it came out after WPF I'd say that indicates something.
        smhinsey 17y ago
        That's sort of what I was getting at, in other words, you don't really need to make a choice between silverlight and WPF because they are essentially the same thing. Maybe this is just another example in the litany of awful branding mistakes Microsoft has made around .NET? As far as books go, I'm not surprised that there are more Silverlight books than WPF. Web-centric technology books are in general more popular than desktop-centric books, particularly in the MS universe.
- dantheman 17y ago
  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.
  - TomOfTTB 17y ago
    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 17y ago
      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.
- MikeMacMan 17y ago
  "Namely, we're finally getting to the point where developing Windows only apps is no longer viable." There's no story here. Both Silverlight and AIR are cross-platform. NYT chose AIR over Silverlight for purely technical reasons that all seem reasonable. Silverlight is not as far along as AIR at this point, simple as that. The article mentions a bunch of anti-Microsoft comments on the NYT web site, suggesting that 'Microsoft-rejection' led to the migration to AIR. I find that very unlikely.
  - riffic 17y ago
    cross platform does not mean standards-compliant.
    - dylanmcd 17y ago
      What standards does AIR stick to that Silverlight doesn't?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
pj 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.
  - greyboy 17y ago
    > I recently discovered I can watch many of the games broadcast by ESPN on ESPN360. You appear to be one of the chosen who have access. My super-huge-ISP only gets me this message: ESPN360.com is available at no charge to fans who receive their high-speed internet connection from an ESPN360.com affiliated internet service provider. ESPN360.com is also available to fans that access the internet from U.S. college campuses and U.S. military bases. Your current computer network falls outside of these categories. Here’s how you can get access to ESPN360.com. Awesome... > 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). You know, I tried to do the same thing. And on both machines I tried it on, Silverlight failed to install with some cryptic, unhelpful error message. Both machines were running Windows XP and installing inside IE. I couldn't believe I was seriously having problems with Microsoft installing Silverlight correctly in its own browser. I browse with all audio/video media disabled by default - and I dislike RMS. If there is something I absolutely must see, I open IE to view it. Fortunately for me, I hardly need Flash and never need Silverlight.
felixmar 17y ago
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.
- MikeMacMan 17y ago
  Exactly. I'm a Mac user and a Flex developer, but I was thrilled when Silverlight was released. Suddenly, I could watch Netflix movies on my Mac!
- old-gregg 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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.
FraaJad 17y ago
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.
jsz0 17y ago
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.
mellis 17y ago
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?
dchest 17y ago
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.

52 points by TomOfTTB 17y ago

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.

smhinsey 17y ago
what makes you say that WPF has been all but abandoned? the upcoming visual studio 10 release has a WPF based editor.
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  The fact that there are like...10 books total on it. That the MS people I talk to no longer evangelize it. Or the fact that Microsoft is trying very hard to build Silverlight into a viable competitor as quickly as possible. Take your pick. (For the record, I don't think Microsoft will ever actually abandon it completely because they need to have something native. But for 95% of developers WPF just doesn't make sense anymore)
  - smhinsey 17y ago
    I am not totally convinced that WPF & Silverlight are even in competition with one another. They are both based on the same core technology, XAML. Without knowing what Microsoft's long term plans (presuming they have them) for the two technologies, it's hard to say with any certainty whether or not they intend to converge the two eventually or phase one out in favor of the other. I am not really sure how great of an indicators book are. All of the "usual suspect" publishers either have books on the topic or are working on them.
    - TomOfTTB 17y ago
      What I'm saying is I don't think it matters what Microsoft is going to do. With XNA being the way to write games now and Silverlight V3 looking like it can do everything WPF can (in a (theoretically) multi-platform enviornment to boot) why would anyone choose WPF? As for books, the fact that there are already dramatically more Silverlight books out there and it came out after WPF I'd say that indicates something.
      - smhinsey 17y ago
        That's sort of what I was getting at, in other words, you don't really need to make a choice between silverlight and WPF because they are essentially the same thing. Maybe this is just another example in the litany of awful branding mistakes Microsoft has made around .NET? As far as books go, I'm not surprised that there are more Silverlight books than WPF. Web-centric technology books are in general more popular than desktop-centric books, particularly in the MS universe.
dantheman 17y ago
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.
- TomOfTTB 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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.
MikeMacMan 17y ago
"Namely, we're finally getting to the point where developing Windows only apps is no longer viable." There's no story here. Both Silverlight and AIR are cross-platform. NYT chose AIR over Silverlight for purely technical reasons that all seem reasonable. Silverlight is not as far along as AIR at this point, simple as that. The article mentions a bunch of anti-Microsoft comments on the NYT web site, suggesting that 'Microsoft-rejection' led to the migration to AIR. I find that very unlikely.
- riffic 17y ago
  cross platform does not mean standards-compliant.
  - dylanmcd 17y ago
    What standards does AIR stick to that Silverlight doesn't?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

pj 17y ago

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 17y ago
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.
- greyboy 17y ago
  > I recently discovered I can watch many of the games broadcast by ESPN on ESPN360. You appear to be one of the chosen who have access. My super-huge-ISP only gets me this message: ESPN360.com is available at no charge to fans who receive their high-speed internet connection from an ESPN360.com affiliated internet service provider. ESPN360.com is also available to fans that access the internet from U.S. college campuses and U.S. military bases. Your current computer network falls outside of these categories. Here’s how you can get access to ESPN360.com. Awesome... > 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). You know, I tried to do the same thing. And on both machines I tried it on, Silverlight failed to install with some cryptic, unhelpful error message. Both machines were running Windows XP and installing inside IE. I couldn't believe I was seriously having problems with Microsoft installing Silverlight correctly in its own browser. I browse with all audio/video media disabled by default - and I dislike RMS. If there is something I absolutely must see, I open IE to view it. Fortunately for me, I hardly need Flash and never need Silverlight.

felixmar 17y ago

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.

MikeMacMan 17y ago
Exactly. I'm a Mac user and a Flex developer, but I was thrilled when Silverlight was released. Suddenly, I could watch Netflix movies on my Mac!
old-gregg 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.

FraaJad 17y ago

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.

jsz0 17y ago

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.

mellis 17y ago

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?

dchest 17y ago

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.