No.
So once again, we have the Silverlight is dead debate raging on with developers writing open letters in blood (metaphorically) as if their reason for living walked out on them with someone else leaving them with nothing but the darkness of night with only the moon as their hope of (silver)light. Poetic much? Anyway, I have written in the past about Silverlight being Microsoft’s next generation proprietary development platform and I still believe it is.
The reason why we’re having this discussion is because Steven Sinofsky did not mention Silverlight or WPF instead said HTML5 and JavaScript will be the platforms of choice for the rich Windows 8 apps. To be clear, he was referring to the tablet interface. If only the pundits understood that Windows 8 will have two UIs, web crawlers would’ve had less crap to scan. Back to Silverlight, in my opinion this was Microsoft’s way of telling the new college grads that using those snazzy new tools for HTML5 and JS you can still create apps for Windows. It goes beyond that, by highlighting HTML5/JS for Windows 8, Microsoft is piggybacking on Steve Jobs’ open rhetoric at the same time they are able to pull of a brilliant PR stunt saving Internet Explorer from some of the bad reputation.
With IE not in the discussions, web developers will be interested in coming up with projects for Windows 8 which in turn (and hopefully) will work well on Internet Explorer too. Google and Mozilla have been talking about HTML5, now suddenly, the apps for browsers are apps for the OS. This even bites the sting out of Chrome OS since Windows 8 for tablet can switch between this web world and traditional Windows!
The All Things D and Computex demos were targeted towards tablets, now if Microsoft were to start their come-back with words like Silverlight that most of the cynical pundits believe is still a Flash competing browser plugin, Microsoft would’ve been trashed. What now is restricted to, “Oh Windows is doomed since it has Windows” would’ve been more about how unpopular Silverlight is and how Microsoft is dead for considering a dead browser plugin; not that they aren’t claiming the death of Microsoft even now, but you get the point. So, all in all, Silverlight isn’t going anywhere even if Scott Gutherie has. Silverlight has matured into a platform and it was time for Microsoft to focus on the third Windows – Azure.
I’d suggest, sit back and relax. In the grand scheme of things I don’t see Microsoft dumping Silverlight. They want to get the new in-vogue web devs onto IE & Windows, which they certainly did by catching everyone’s attention.
Update: Mary Jo has some good insight on the topic.
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Nailed it.
You are useless. I don’t see a like button enabled for this post. I hope it’s only because I’m on my mobile but seriously. I wanna like it.
Good article anyways. Refreshing break from the sensationalism running around on the web. To be for on developers though if MS wants them to stick around they need a much clearer vision of where theory tools are going and what the roadmap is. This has typically been MS’s problem. Zune for example. Great product but crap marketing and zero vision or transparency. Who would want to even support it then. Sitting back and being patient is a good thing. But developers are trying to find a platform to settle into and put their incomes on the line for. And MS hasn’t given them much of an answer yet.
hehe, there’s a Facebook share button but it keeps playing hide and seek. Will fix it this week! I agree that MSFT has been a bit wobbly about this and the uncertainty is what is causing quite a bit of the problem. Let’s hope they realize the need for a clear roadmap.
The thing developers want to know is that you can create Silverlight for the *new* UI. Not for the desktop. There is utterly zero doubt that you’ll be able to create out of browser Silverlight apps for the classic desktop UI.
That’s what I’d like clarification on anyway! though I’m sure it will be the case :)
You nailed it except that even XNA (very sure) will not be going away and maybe even MFC or Win32 (50% chance). So developers, what you have learnt is NOT going to be turned totally useless.
Agreed!
I have a extremely educated guess on why it was not being talked about for now: Silverlight, .NET and XNA have yet to be fully ported for Windows 8 ARM. In order to not send mixed messages they decided to concentrate in “crowd pleaser” of Web Stack.
The platform for the Immersive UI-UX (which i previously knew and stated many times as Fluid and that had the codename:Wind) is the .AppX. This seems to be a container just like most of what Microsoft does (xap, .gadget, docx, etc,etc also work as zip files) and the way a Web Stack based app works in Windows 8 Immersive UI-UX is very very alike to how a Windows Gadget does but with a much greater scope. Yet they are not kidding with saying that ANYONE will be then able to make a app that works with Windows 8 Immersive UI-UX.
.NET will not be available for the Immersive UI-UX. But Silverlight (however yet unkown if it will be limited to SL4 only at first) and XNA will work with it and i unless thing have changed. both Silverlight and Web Stack based apps will use the .AppX termination. Maybe even XNA games will share it, that is unclear.
The W8 desktop UI-UX is being redesigned and they are now in the stage of deciding how it will finally looks from the prototypes they already have. But everything essential to it, how to develo, publish and target W8, plus what .AppX means should be revealed in the BUILD conference.
Another thing that was not finished as was painfully obvious to me in the still awesome partner demo of W8 was the portrait mode for the Immersive UI-UX plus some of the effects for it. I do can tell you that “The Bleed” is customizable and will not have to be purple. More than likely the default will be a special blue that they more that likely have yet to decide or agree in. Right now it was chosen because it was known to work well for Microsoft Surface. That if you have seen uses a Purple Bleed by default and it is the actual color used for the brand.
True. i think that could well be a reason. but I think SL has a lot of potential to do more than just web apps. Out of browser capabilities of SL, I imagine will play well with the “immersive” UI.
True. i think that could well be a reason. but I think SL has a lot of potential to do more than just web apps. Out of browser capabilities of SL, I imagine will play well with the “immersive” UI.
you correctly summarized it.
I have a extremely educated guess on why it was not being talked about for now: Silverlight, .NET and XNA have yet to be fully ported for Windows 8 ARM. In order to not send mixed messages they decided to concentrate in “crowd pleaser” of Web Stack.
The platform for the Immersive UI-UX (which i previously knew and stated many times as Fluid and that had the codename:Wind) is the .AppX. This seems to be a container just like most of what Microsoft does (xap, .gadget, docx, etc,etc also work as zip files) and the way a Web Stack based app works in Windows 8 Immersive UI-UX is very very alike to how a Windows Gadget does but with a much greater scope. Yet they are not kidding with saying that ANYONE will be then able to make a app that works with Windows 8 Immersive UI-UX.
.NET will not be available for the Immersive UI-UX. But Silverlight (however yet unkown if it will be limited to SL4 only at first) and XNA will work with it and i unless thing have changed. both Silverlight and Web Stack based apps will use the .AppX termination. Maybe even XNA games will share it, that is unclear.
The W8 desktop UI-UX is being redesigned and they are now in the stage of deciding how it will finally looks from the prototypes they already have. But everything essential to it, how to develo, publish and target W8, plus what .AppX means should be revealed in the BUILD conference.
Another thing that was not finished as was painfully obvious to me in the still awesome partner demo of W8 was the portrait mode for the Immersive UI-UX plus some of the effects for it. I do can tell you that “The Bleed” is customizable and will not have to be purple. More than likely the default will be a special blue that they more that likely have yet to decide or agree in. Right now it was chosen because it was known to work well for Microsoft Surface. That if you have seen uses a Purple Bleed by default and it is the actual color used for the brand.