Re: [flexcoders] MS - "The future of the web is HTML 5"

[Oleg Sivokon]

Hehe, I still think that ActiveX was a better idea :) I was against that
technology once, but here's my way of how I learned to understand the
intention of it and why do I think it wasn't that bad:
VIM (a code editor) may be compiled on windows, although it's a console
application, so far gVIM exists I thought it should be possible to stick the
editor window to a Windows form if, say, I can get VIM in a shape of COM
object. I then learned from VIM sources, that it was once been able to do
that - it had an option to be compiled with OLE support. These days OLE is
an obsolete technology, and there isn't much help on it if you will search
MSDN. Any place you come across OLE it would say that ActiveX is the
successor and you should use it instead. Reading more on this subject, gives
you better understanding of the intention of why it was developed (I don't
think it was developed in a very friendly way btw). But, one thing sure -
the intention was to design an interface for a foreign program to run inside
and communicate with Windows program. Explorer is just a particular case.
It was relatively easy to conform to OLE requirements when not using MS
tools - that's why VIM has it, but it became increasingly difficult to
conform to ActiveX requirement. Well, ActiveX is more feature reach and more
advanced in other regards, but it's not achieving its goal because it didn't
became a standard interface for linking and embedding :)
If you want the analogy in Flash world - think of a pure AS3 code
cooperating with Flex framework. A straight forward example - make your
display object be a valid candidate to be added into Flex display list -
implement IUIComponent... yeah, right, I would give up doing this, it's to
much work and most of it, if not all you don't want to do. I don't think
that Flex engineers have thought about it in this aspect, and I think that
MS engineers spoiled a potentially good idea by poor implementation...
Bottom line: I would be much happier to see MS coming up with some
alternative to ActiveX, then wasting time on HTML5. Maybe they need HTML5 to
not to loose in the browsers battle (because of marketing / advertising and
so on), but as I've said in another post, I don't see it as a way internet
wants to be in the future. HTML5 is just another "swine flu", which is given
way much more attention than it's worth IMO.

Re: [flexcoders] MS - "The future of the web is HTML 5"

[David Adams]

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 12:13 PM, Guy Morton  wrote:
> http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/30/microsoft-weighs-in-the-future-of-the-web-is-html5/
>
> and
>
> http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx
>
>
> So, I wonder if the Steve/Apple bashing will now move on to MS-bashing? I'm 
> guessing not...

I think it's a pain that Apple won't allow Flash on their devices and
are blocking cross-compiling. I personally like Flex because it seems
to be the best way to make cross-platform RIA apps these days - it's a
whole lot faster and easier than using a JS framework. I'd really like
to see the platform continue to improve and flourish.

With that said, Adobe needs to lift their game in some areas. Not
picking on Flex or Flash here, but Adobe has really become "the new
Microsoft" when it comes to security problems. PDF exploits, as an
example, have been in the news a lot this year. Apple and Microsoft
both make patching/updating the OS and various critical components a
pretty smooth experience. Adobe? I'm technical and fail more often
than not. The most reliable thing to do is to download the full
installer for the product (if you can find the right version) and
install from scratch. Not good.

[flexcoders] MS - "The future of the web is HTML 5"

[Guy Morton]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/30/microsoft-weighs-in-the-future-of-the-web-is-html5/

and

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx


So, I wonder if the Steve/Apple bashing will now move on to MS-bashing? I'm 
guessing not...

Reposted here for posterity, from 
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/30/microsoft-weighs-in-the-future-of-the-web-is-html5/:

"Where Steve Jobs leads, Microsoft follows -- how's that for shaking up the 
hornet's nest? It's said in jest, of course, but we've just come across a post 
from the General Manager for Internet Explorer, Dean Hachamovitch, and the 
perspective expressed by him on the subject of web content delivery broadly 
agrees with the essay penned by Jobs yesterday on the very same subject. 
Echoing the Apple CEO's words, Hachamovitch describes HTML5 as "the future of 
the web," praising it for allowing content to be played without the need for 
plug-ins and with native hardware acceleration (in both Windows 7 and Mac OS 
X). He goes on to identify H.264 as the best video codec for the job -- so much 
so that it'll be the only one supported in IE9's HTML5 implementation -- before 
turning to the dreaded subject of Flash. 

This is where it gets good, because he literally repeats one of Jobs' six 
pillars of Flash hate: "reliability, security, and performance" are not as good 
as Microsoft would like them. Where Hachamovitch diverges from Apple's messiah, 
however, is in describing Flash as an important part of "a good consumer 
experience on today's web," primarily because it's difficult for the typical 
consumer to access Flash-free content. Still, it's got to be depressing for 
Adobe's crew when the best thing either of the two biggest players in tech has 
to say about your wares is that they're ubiquitous. Wonder how Shantanu Narayen 
is gonna try and spin this one.

P.S. : it's notable that in multiple paragraphs of discussing "the future," 
Microsoft's IE general fails to once mention the fabled Silverlight, itself a 
rich media browser plug-in. Given Silverlight's featured role in the Windows 
Phone 7 infrastructure and other things like Netflix, we doubt it's on the 
outs, but there are sure to be some sour faces greeting Hachamovitch this 
morning."


And from http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx

"There’s been a lot of posting about video and video formats on the web 
recently. This is a good opportunity to talk about Microsoft’s point of view.

The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 
process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, 
interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes 
video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is 
an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 
video only.

H.264 is an industry standard, with broad and strong hardware support. Because 
of this standardization, you can easily take what you record on a typical 
consumer video camera, put it on the web, and have it play in a web browser on 
any operating system or device with H.264 support (e.g. a PC with Windows 7). 
Recently, we publicly showed IE9 playing H.264-encoded video from YouTube.  You 
can read about the benefits of hardware acceleration here, or see an example of 
the benefits at the 26:35 mark here. For all these reasons, we’re focusing our 
HTML5 video support on H.264.

Other codecs often come up in these discussions. The distinction between the 
availability of source code and the ownership of the intellectual property in 
that available source code is critical. Today, intellectual property rights for 
H.264 are broadly available through a well-defined program managed by MPEG LA.  
 The rights to other codecs are often less clear, as has been described in the 
press.  Of course, developers can rely on the H.264 codec and hardware 
acceleration support of the underlying operating system, like Windows 7, 
without paying any additional royalty.

Today, video on the web is predominantly Flash-based. While video may be 
available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on 
a particular website without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. 
Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and 
performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about 
the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, 
Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on 
today’s web.

Dean Hachamovitch
General Manager, Internet Explorer"



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