Filed under: Developer, Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Adobe, Apple, Microsoft
Dev Chair : Rebooting the web
by Alex Hung May 4th 2007 at 10:00AM
CoreCLR, cross-platform .Net Framework, DLR, Silverlight, the list goes on! But what is so great about them all, you ask? Currently we have the .Net Framework with ASP.NET AJAX and a library of free components to help web developers. But despite what those web monkeys try to convince us desktop developers, web programming sucks in general, and JavaScript/CSS in particular, because we have to deal with the web browser and the messy standard(s).
With Silverlight and CoreCLR, developers can now program the whole application/user experience in the same framework/environment on both the server side and client side without any need to switch languages and mindset, which is the most difficult part. And with support for dynamic languages such as Ruby and IronPhyton, developers who previously shunt Microsoft technologies now have less of an excuse to do so!
As far as Silverlight itself is concerned, I am not going into the details. Lots have already been written, so go visit Scott Hanselman's site and read for yourself. To summarize my reaction though: after reading Scott's post as well as many others, I really don't think it is hyperbole to say "Microsoft rebooted the Web" on May 1, 2007, as Jeff Prosise, co-founder of Wintellect was quoted on Scobleizer.
One of the biggest surprise is that Silverlight works on the Mac, runs the same code without any modification and renders the screen identically between the two platforms. This is a big win for developers because we will be able to cater to the Mac platform without doing anything extra, potentially.
But why target the OS X platform? Why not some flavor of Linux? I believe that in order to support Microsoft's web strategy, they need to get more web developers onto their side. With Silverlight, Microsoft can now go head to head against Adobe's Flash and FLEX framework. But to really fight Adobe, Microsoft needs to also entice content developers to use their tools instead of Adobe's, and this is why the Mac support make a lot of sense.
Will this strategy work? It depends on how 'deep' the Mac support will be. If all we get are a browser plug-in for the Mac browsers and the .Net Framework then I do not think much will change. Perhaps some ex-Microsoft developers who have switched to Linux/OS X will switch back because now they can use Ruby or Python. To effect substantial momentum from Mac developers, Microsoft will need to actively support the Mac platform (such as giving out free TextMate application bundle for all the programming languages), which - if their Mac division is anything to go by - they typically haven't done well in the past.
Personally, I longed for a fully featured IDE (possibly from Microsoft, but more likely than not) that allows me to develop .Net/Silverlight application on the Mac without any loss in functionality or limitation. Then I will have half a chance on convincing my boss to get me a Mac Pro for the office.