Re: [xul-talk] Kurt Cagle Comments on Microsoft and XAML

acoliver Thu, 23 Dec 2004 14:51:20 -0800

Honestly, I think you guys are doomed anyhow unless you come up with something multi-platform that is more credible than client-side Java. Mozilla XUL looks dead but still the most promising idea, add Blackwood to it and you'd have something. Make the active-x control for IE work and come up with good bindings to JSF and hopefully things that don't suck like JSF and you'd own the day. Until then, y'all are interesting but not credible to be honest. Applets are so 1997-8

Arron Ferguson wrote:

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -----
From: Matthew Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Problem is, his suggestion of getting the opposition going on this
doesn't seem likely (I'm assuming he's referring to the Open Source
community). Everybody's too busy going their own way. Having said


that,

that's probably the strength for the current Web: it's a total
hodge-podge of many technologies, many organizations, many companies

and

many developers.

  First of all, I think you miss his point. He's saying that
opposition would be more likely to develop critical mass if Microsoft
announces a real release date for XAML. The lack of focus on a


specific

standard is in part a belief that XAML's release is still way off in

the

distance. If there was a hard release date, people would start looking
where that fits into their own development schedules and realize that
they don't have nearly as much time as they thought they did.

You're right. After re-reading this I missed the boat on this point.
Maybe
That's what we all need is a solid date to light a fire under our
behinds.

  As for a hodge-podge of standards, I really don't see that. There
may be some diversity in some areas, but the most successful
technologies on the web (HTTP, HTML, DOM, ECMAscript, CSS) are based

on

open standards developed by several web standards organizations.

Yes, HTTP, DOM, CSS and JavaScript yes. HTML is a hard target to hit
since you may still be expecting old bastardized HTML from the
Netscape/IE war days or you may be saying strict XHTML instead.

Even if you stick with say XHTML I have yet to see a complex page in
XHTML look the same in IE, Firefox, Opera, Konqueror and that one on the
Mac (Sorry, I forget the name of it) and I'm not talking about simple
problems like differences in fonts.

Then you have Quicktime, MPEG, AVI, WMV, SWF, Java, VRML, Shockwave
(mostly legacy), Acrobat, Real Player (almost gone now) and a few others
that are not so popular. I know that these ones that I've mentioned are
not open standards, but they are standards nonetheless and in many
circles these plugins are expected to exist on the Web client side,
therefore they make up the hodge-podge of what the Web is today.

And even though these are not open standards, they still need to be
considered by the Open Source community since they help to make things
complicated. They've made what the Web is today more deep rooted meaning
that it'll take quite an attractive new technology to lure everyone
away.

Microsoft would have to offer one really really sweet deal for the
entire Web as we know it to fold and for everyone to move over to
XAML/.NET/Windows 200x. That would have to be the mother of all


killer

apps.

  To some extent I agree with you. However, without reasonable
competition deployed prior to the release of XAML, Microsoft could


come

in with a complete and comprehensive suite of development tools an


grab

a significant portion of the development market before anyone knows


what

hit them. It would take a decade to undo this kind of damage if we're
not prepared.

I do see what you're saying. But at the end of the day it's all about
dollars and cents. Even if Microsoft offers an extremely scalable
technology, offers extremely easy-to-use development tools, offers those
tools absolutely free, offers development documentation that makes
development easy and offers this all to the public at large tomorrow,
it's still going take money to redevelop new Web content, redevelop
back-end programming to talk to DB's, redevelop front-ends.

Now, if Microsoft offers to completely pay for all the new development
costs as well, then I'd say we're in trouble. But that aside, the
consequentialist mentality of the business world is, I think, what'll
stop this from happening too quickly.

I'll add another 0.02 to the pot.

;o)

(my 0.02)

That's in New Yen, right? ;)

Heheh, nah, that's in Canadian funds ... so in USD that would be about
0.0002

;o)

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Re: [xul-talk] Kurt Cagle Comments on Microsoft and XAML

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