Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#21

Post by cryptoz » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:29 PM UTC

DrJokepu wrote: post #9

joelthelion wrote: post #5

Good riddance. And once again, all the companies that decided to rely on a proprietary, non standard technology are going to get bitten.

In the meantime, there's no really reliable standard, cross-platform and cross-browser way to play back audio or video in the browser as major browser vendors still cannot agree on a single codec that would work everywhere.

That magical method of playing audio or video has never existed, though. The elimination of the Silverlight plugin (and mobile Flash!), neither of which were reliable cross platform/cross-browser, should speed up the efforts put in to finding such a perfect solution.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#22

Post by kstrauser » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:36 PM UTC

viggity wrote: post #15

I "get" it when it comes to silverlight for public facing websites. Really. I do. The general populace doesn't want to have to install a plugin. But what about intranet apps? Silverlight is so incredibly easy to work with (compared to html/css/js) that there are lots of companies that have built intranet apps with it because they control the end point. I really hope this isn't true.

A lot of companies that said the same about ActiveX are still limping along with IE6. I'd rather ask my boss to budget for more development time than to suggest rolling out a single-platform solution in 2011.

The takeaway is this: don't build your mission critical internal apps on a Microsoft browser plugin. This has never worked out well.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#23

Post by recoiledsnake » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:38 PM UTC

hkarthik wrote: post #10

I'm curious what Netflix has in the works to move off of Silverlight. I remember reading that their biggest problem with HTML5 players was the lack of good DRM options to please the studios.

Why would they want to move off something that works? The plugins will be getting security updates after all.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#24

Post by moonchrome » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:38 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #18

apaprocki wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what I've heard (from people still at Microsoft). Everything points to Silverlight and WPF being frozen because the teams are pretty much broken up at this point. Also, this is pretty clear as well: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17254070

The branding might be going away, just like the Zune brand, but the core technologies are already part of the Windows 8 SDK.

What core technology - XAML & .NET ? AFAIK WinRT is a rewrite and is not compatible with WPF & Silverlight. Silverlight (cross-platform RIA plugin) seems dead.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#25

Post by arctangent » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:39 PM UTC

viggity wrote: post #15

I "get" it when it comes to silverlight for public facing websites. Really. I do. The general populace doesn't want to have to install a plugin. But what about intranet apps? Silverlight is so incredibly easy to work with (compared to html/css/js) that there are lots of companies that have built intranet apps with it because they control the end point. I really hope this isn't true.

But why require your developers to learn another set of technologies? Much better IMHO to just have a good web development team who can make internal applications too.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#26

Post by sunchild » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:45 PM UTC

viggity wrote: post #15

I "get" it when it comes to silverlight for public facing websites. Really. I do. The general populace doesn't want to have to install a plugin. But what about intranet apps? Silverlight is so incredibly easy to work with (compared to html/css/js) that there are lots of companies that have built intranet apps with it because they control the end point. I really hope this isn't true.

One really important reason is not to tie your intranet to the Silverlight/Flash/runtime N roadmap. Better to hook up to something that will run in browsers without painting yourself into yet another proprietary corner.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#27

Post by jeswin » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:46 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #18

apaprocki wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what I've heard (from people still at Microsoft). Everything points to Silverlight and WPF being frozen because the teams are pretty much broken up at this point. Also, this is pretty clear as well: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17254070

The branding might be going away, just like the Zune brand, but the core technologies are already part of the Windows 8 SDK.

Forget silverlight, .net itself has a questionable future on windows client. WinRT went back to C++. .NET is being positioned a server side technology.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#28

Post by mweimer » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:46 PM UTC

arctangent wrote: post #25

viggity wrote: post #15

I "get" it when it comes to silverlight for public facing websites. Really. I do. The general populace doesn't want to have to install a plugin. But what about intranet apps? Silverlight is so incredibly easy to work with (compared to html/css/js) that there are lots of companies that have built intranet apps with it because they control the end point. I really hope this isn't true.

But why require your developers to learn another set of technologies? Much better IMHO to just have a good web development team who can make internal applications too.

I think most corporations already have people with C#/XAML skills.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#29

Post by loarabia » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:54 PM UTC

moonchrome wrote: post #24

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The branding might be going away, just like the Zune brand, but the core technologies are already part of the Windows 8 SDK.

What core technology - XAML & .NET ? AFAIK WinRT is a rewrite and is not compatible with WPF & Silverlight. Silverlight (cross-platform RIA plugin) seems dead.

Certainly Win8 and Windows Phone are not binary compatible with WPF and Silverlight but if you wander around the portion of msdn dedicated to Metro apps or to phone development and look at the available types and methods from the core runtime up to the presentation layer you can see that the common overlap is very large and that they probably started from the same place.

Re: Microsoft may halt development work on Silverlight plugin after next release

#30

Post by ConstantineXVI » Wed, Nov 09, 2011, 2:57 PM UTC

hkarthik wrote: post #10

I'm curious what Netflix has in the works to move off of Silverlight. I remember reading that their biggest problem with HTML5 players was the lack of good DRM options to please the studios.

Likely what they do on every other platform already; a sandboxed HTML5 "native" app. They could also take the NaCl route like they do for ChromeOS; but I don't think NaCl is available in plugin form yet (not that it matters for Win8; plugins of any kind are verboten in Metro mode)