Visual Studio infected with HTML5 by 'rogue faction'
There's nothing to stop you working with HTML5 in Visual Studio. Except for the fact that you can't use many of the features that polish the .NET-editing experience. That wasn't a problem for Microsoft until it decided HTML5 was the future of coding on PCs, devices, and the web, unveiling a very Web- and HTML-centric next …
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passionate vs. passive
It is _usually_ the case that 'the work of "passionate people done in their spare time"' is what makes a company valuable to other passionate people. Not the well-planned and misplaced grand ideas some manager has blessed. Most successes within a company are 'accidental'. At least, no one higher up gave their permission for any such success.
Short version: Any innovation at Microsoft is *without* the company's knowledge.
Sure hope those passionate souls have their names noticed somewhere else besides Microsoft.
lack of strategy
Silverlight has failed, no one uses it, neither consumers or corporates. So MS are scrabbling for something to replace it. So they are putting their eggs in the HTML 5 basket. Now they are doing so, they are moving emphasis away from .Net/Silverlight.
Yet HTML 5 does not exist.
It will be a brave developer or organisation that invests in silverlight/.NET - looks like their time is up for the new HTML 5 shiny new thing. Same thing happened to VB6, which was massively used at the time.
So what to do? bet the farm on a tentative MS HTML 5 future, where no doubt their interpretation of HTML 5 will only work correctly in IE? Or do you bet on the past with Silverlight and .NET, which MS are now awfully quiet about?
Or do you move to Android / OSX and even Linux (which is mainly server-side and embedded with niche desktop)?
Interesting times. To get to the main point, Microsoft do not seem to have a clear strategic direction, they are dropping hints about HTML 5 and this is causing massive confusion and angst amongst those that gamble their income on MS dev tools.
Re: So what to do?
I expect they will do much the same as last time.
Those starting new projects with no legacy will avoid the proprietary option like the plague because they've seen what happens down the line.
Those who have a serious codebase to remain compatible with will mostly stick with whatever option MS eventually provide that offers upwards compatibility. With .NET, that meant "porting" all your VB6 projects to VB.NET. Unpleasant, but feasible. It isn't clear what that option might be this time, though. C# is a strongly typed languaged and Javascript isn't, so there's no obvious port in that direction. Java would work but MS are "unlikely" to drop .NET in favour of the JVM.
Perhaps this time round there just won't be a migration path. In which case we've gotta hope that those Web 2.0 developers maintained a strict separation between UI and business logic, so that their client sides are really thin and therefore easy to just re-write from scratch. (Well, I say "we", but obviously that won't include their competition who are now presumably rubbing their hands with glee.)
Icon: D'oh, for all those who forgot that vendor lock-in is a bad thing.
Don't worry - count the number of government sites using Silverlight
Phew, so go to see government supporting an ailing industry.
Bet that was cheap and will be cheap to replace.
It's a shame that Microsoft appear to be moving towards a standards compliant solution; because it will make it a little more difficult to justify choosing them over a technology neutral solution.
Huh?!?
If no one uses Silverlight what were the thousands of apps in the WP7 app store written in? Neither Mango nor Apollo (more than a year away) are moving away from .NET or Silverlight. And why then are future releases of Silverlight promised? And what makes you think .NET sans Silverlight is a bad bet for the future? And how would you, using a Microsoft stack, provide JSON or any other services to HTML5 clients without using WCF and .NET?
The way this industry takes a single statement from a vendor in complete isolation and rapes the context - to promote some obscure personal preference or agenda* - doesn't cease to amaze me.
* Are you seriously entertaining or suggesting a move to Andriod/OSX/Linux because of an as-yet unannounced tools strategy from Microsoft? If you're a CxO or even an Architect I want to know where you work so that I know whom I should be avoiding.
@Ken
Does anyone use VB.NET much? It is not a genuine substitute for what VB6 was to most people (not saying VB6 was good or bad).
.NET is Microsofts rip-off of Java, so yes, they would not switch to Java, not until their Windows cash cow mercifully staggers off to the slaughterhouse.
It's possible to assume that strongly-typed C# running on .NET (VM or whatever) will be for back-end biz logic and this HTML5 stuff for the UI. But that's a dangerous path to take, because devs will be asked to learn both systems, it's a clunky architecture for thick client apps. All the horror of web coding with none of the advantages of the thick client above what is available now. So maybe .NET will be sunsetted a bit. If this sounds confusing - yes it is, and that is scary for MS devs.
@Eadon
Just had a look at your other Reg posts. Java nut. 'Nuff said. Some points though;
VB.NET is as strongly typed as C# and produces the same MSIL that C# does.
HTML5 will not produce thick client apps, because HTML is a markup language. Much like XAML. Thick clients include (apart from UI components and UI process components, which you might build using JavaScript) application logic, data access logic, service agents, workflows, exception management and security components and so forth and so on.
Wat you call the horror of web coding with none of the advantages of thick client is in fact available now - in two flavours: WPF and Silverlight. Both use XAML for markup and your .NET language of choice for application logic.
.NET will "sunsetted" as much as Java will.
@Spearchucker Jones
Thousands of half-baked SilverLight apps in the WP7 app store - to serve 0.2% of the smart phone user-base - you've proved my point for me right there. WP7 is a complete disaster and SL is a disaster, and together they are a disaster squared. Why else is MS panicking and rushing to hype HTML5?
SilverLight is a kind of .NET lite / Adobe Flash-wannabe / Browser plugin that only more or less works on IE bastard spawn of Satan. MS decided to shoehorn it onto WP7 and that strategy failed by any measure or definition of the word FAIL.
Silverlight fails because it tries to be all things to all people -
1) a common web UI
2) a common smart phone thick client,
3) a windows thick client, and
4) a flash replacement.
1) failed outright, websites do not use SL and those that did ditched it fast when users complained. FAIL
2) WinPho7 has 0.2% of the market and has completely stalled even at those giddy depths. FAIL
3) MFC, VB, C++, .NET, now SL - what's the point? Next HTML5 apparently. FAIL
4) Even Flash is dying, thanks largely to Apple and due to it being buggy and slow on mobile systems. So MS copied a dinosaur technology (Flash) to make a new plodding dinosaur (SL) just as a pretty asteroid lights up the Cretaceous sky. EPIC FAIL
.NET will plod on, but even Joel On Software thinks it's a mess, with different run times and massive downloads required just to run a hello-world app. MS themselves do not use .NET to program their own applications, for the most part. And it's closed. Don't mention Mono - Microsoft are now a patent troll and will sue Mono devs into the ground for a few bucks. FAIL.
You play down the MS hype for a "single statement", is it wise to dismiss this? Maybe for you, but for companies that are investing millions in software development, this change of direction could mean the difference between profits and bankruptcy. At the very least Microsoft have created Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, something they are masters of, but against their own platforms!
As for agenda, you're attacking a straw man here. Since you raise the issue, I would like to learn your own agenda, Microsoft do pay shills to work the forums and have been caught red handed doing so...
Cheers
@Eadon
"Does anyone use VB.NET much? It is not a genuine substitute for what VB6 was to most people (not saying VB6 was good or bad)."
Not now, they don't. But 10 years ago it was the only migration path that didn't require you to re-write every frigging line of code in your app, so a whole boat-load of VB6 developers used VB.NET as a way of "keeping alive" their commercially successful projects. I've also heard it wasn't a "genuine substitute", but it was certainly more genuine than anything else.
Once it is in VB.NET, it becomes possible to perform a "rolling port" to any of the other .NET languages, since they are link-compatible and have almost identical feature sets and so at a pinch can be treated as alternative syntaxes for a single language. (It is probably possible to machine-translate between them. Therefore, 10 years down the line, I expect any active codebase to have relatively little VB.NET left in it.
Two points...
In my experience (software developer contractor for more than 15 years) VB.NET and C# are pretty much used the same, though VB.NET is slightly less - I'd say 40% v 60% for C#. Although in the early days it had some disadvantages compared with C#, these have largely evaporated.
Secondly, .NET will be around for years - predominantly on the server, where it works most effectively. This model is well established and liked by a huge number of corporates. Where HTML5+Javascript may take off is on the mobile platform, where it makes sense - but it will still be hooking up to web services, quite a lot of which will be .NET generated.
Just my 2c.
@Eadon
To quote you:
MS themselves do not use .NET to program their own applications, for the most part.
Wrong my friend. Consider that Visual Studio 2010's interface is written in WPF. Consider that SharePoint is an ASP.NET application. Consider that Microsoft Expression Studio is written at least partly in managed code. Consider that Hotmail (bad example for quality I know) is also written at least partly with .NET code running at the server end of things. Exchange Server, which relies a LOT on the Windows PowerShell which is if I recall at least partly managed code.
I agree that the latest statements from Microsoft have created uncertainty, fear and doubt. I don't like the idea of going over to www.windowsclient.net and not seeing any new content since November of 2010 in the featured new section. It bothers me too that a once interesting section of MSDN called Coding4Fun has now become all about Windows Phone 7. (A platform I really don't want to get into and one I'm sick to the teeth of hearing about)
I'm a C# developer, mostly aimed at ASP.NET applications, but still, I'm not liking what I see here from Microsoft and it just seems to me that this company is lost entirely and without any clear direction.
No one?
"Silverlight has failed, no one uses it, neither consumers or corporates."
The Netflix streaming video player uses Silverlight. You know, the #1 Internet application, measured by network traffic.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/25/netflix_bittorrent_traffic_share/
So it appears that some consumers and some "corporates" are in fact using it.
the MSFT upgrade treadmill
Still traumatised by the 1st .NETified Studio release, swiftly replaced by an 'upgrade' to an earlier, slimmer, faster, usable release. So bad it made Eclipse look good!
Looks like we're in the "we've got the Frankensteined beast working well again, let's break it" part of the cycle again. Better beef up your machines...
"Passionate people in their spare time?"
Nonsense, Microsoft are betting on HTML5, it's all going in the next official version. This is a beta test.
Will somebody tell them That HTML is not a langage
That HTML is not a langage (not turing complete) and that it is not even standardized yet
Will somebody tell tham that Javascript is a crappy langage unfit for serious development ?
Will somebody tell them that nobody in its right mind truly think that "their" HTML+Jvascript will be any useful without proprietary extension, because at some point, you have to address the operating system to do specific stuff, and that there is no point in having the immaturity and crapiness of Javascript coupled with the proprietary ?
They had a wonderful solution to the web pains with silverlight IF only they were ready to truly open source it and let the technology go for later build on it new tools and better solutions.
What we needed was a well thought out in browser virtual machine for dynamic languages that would have helped us out of javascript and back into serious languages and the tools we build the last 30 years (namespaces, packages, rich types, serious debugger, serious ide and such ...)
@Annakan
"Will somebody tell tham that Javascript is a crappy langage unfit for serious development ?"
The growing amount of it out there would seem to indicate otherwise.
Tombo
.NET isn't going anywhere, we're talking about a sliver of application development: "rich" web experience inside a browser. Win32 will be around forever because frankly, HTML+Backend apps suck to do anything other than buy and browse on.
.NET will be used for Win32
.NET will be used for backend (windows services)
.NET will be used for web back end (web services)
.NET will be used for web glue (ASP.NET, MVCx, etc)
HTML5+CSS3 will be used for what SL is used for. To create (or attempt) a rich in-browser experience.
The "make everything web" was a hasty move hoisted onto CIOs by marketing people. Some stuff is good for web, many things aren't. HTML5+CSS3 might level the playing field with the usability of Win32 vs browser, but probably not.
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