Microsoft are officially doing "lots of stuff" re: the HTML5 Canvas.

by f1lt3r • 17 years ago

13 20 17 years ago

zimbabwe4• 17 years ago

What's so bad about companies not bullshitting? If Microsoft said "We think HTML5 isn't worth our time, and we won't lift a finger until we see it picking up," I'd like them a lot more than when they make empty claims. That way, when they actually do stuff (does the IE team do stuff anymore?) I can trust them and look forward to it happening.

tpgauthier• 17 years ago

Google getting behind HTML 5 is probably going to force Microsoft's hands quite a bit. I can't imagine Google rolling out a bunch of new RIA features and having them break in IE, it would look terrible for Microsoft.

zimbabwe4• 17 years ago

It's difficult because Google needs to compromise themselves enough to work for the IE majority. If they break too much then people won't get Chrome. They'll stop using Google.

f1lt3r3• 17 years ago

Yeah they do a lot of stuff. I think the reason people feel they don't is that their coming and goings are largely enveloped behind the green paper curtain. They do put things out there more than people give them credit for, but we are often not aware of them because of a natural schism between the consensus of a world-view and the forays of a dominant corporate machine. Regardless... the two organisms are really different faces of the same entity and should be treated as such if we are to experience the maximum reward from it's cumulative knowledge, which after-all is the primary purpose of the Internet in the first place.

rbanffy• 17 years ago

I think we are reading too much from cryptic political messages.

Unless HTML5 and canvas gain a lot of momentum, and Google is doing a lot in this direction, Microsoft will come up with a broken half-compatible and quirky implementation geared to badmouth the whole HTML5 thing as they did with the ODF "support" in Office.

snprbob863• 17 years ago

This is nothing like ODF support...

ODF is an incomplete standard. Spreadsheet formulas, for example, were not even mentioned when Microsoft started their spec and still aren't even final. It has been at least two years!

Microsoft created a new standard so that it could satisfy the openness demands of their customers (i.e. government organizations) while maintaining the existing level of functionality. Had they waited for the ODF standard, they'd still be waiting. I think the Office file format team did a stellar job without an ounce of malice.

ZeroGravitas• 17 years ago

That doesn't even begin to approach reality, and sounds more like a list of talking points you've picked up from somewhere than a genuine opinion.

I'm getting really sick of Microsoft's new "we can't even begin thinking about implement anything until after it's a fully approved standard" while churning out their own proprietary, unstandardized competitors to those same standards. It's so brazen it's insulting.

f1lt3r3• 17 years ago

Agreed. Mozilla are also doing their part with FireFox, they have something called "35 Days" coming up to co-inside with the public release of 3.5, which is packed with juicy HTML5 goodness.

I think Microsoft are badly hurting from the their lack of web-focus (or at least web-productivity) over past years (around v6), but I don't think they are maimed. When you actually meet some of these guys at conferences etc: they seem to be very intelligent individuals, who have their finger on the pulse, yet remain very guarded.

Their guardedness is understandable from a corporate perspective, but it also carries personal weight when you hear a room full of people bad-mouthing IE with some of their developers standing at the back of the room. I have to say I am sympathetic to their position and believe in their ability, even though I am very much NOT an IE developer or enthusiast.

mpf622• 17 years ago

Apple is doing something is this direction. As far as I know, there is still neither Silverlight nor Flash available on iPhone. But you can implement some neat interactive applications with Canvas and JavaScript that also work on the newer IE-Browsers. So, in my opinion, the ice for Flash/Silverlight is already getting thinner.

mpf622• 17 years ago

Sorry, I forgot to provide an example.

It sure is not a killer application, the example is only meant to show that there already are usecases where you do not need such things as Flash.

Flash: http://www.engadin.stmoritz.ch/winter/berge/corvatsch/info/p...

Canvas/Javascript: http://alpinforum.ch/m/

TweedHeads• 17 years ago

Canvas and SVG would kill silverlight instantly and that's why M$ will never implement any of them.

As simple as that.

snprbob863• 17 years ago

Silverlight's killer feature is adaptive video streaming. The current HTML 5 draft states:

" It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available. "

Netflix, MLB, NBC (Olympics), etc choose Silverlight to enable high quality video streaming while simultaneously supporting lower end connections without requiring manual quality selection. As far as I know, Flash can't do that and I don't expect the HTML 5 video element to be able to do it cross-browser and platform.

Canvas and SVG are nice, but they are hardly enough to kill either of the popular rich internet application browser plugins. Add in video and ignore a large pile of existing skill sets; you might have a case against Flash.

Silverlight isn't doing so great because, in true Microsoft fashion, there is too much complexity. XAML/WPF is a classic inheritance vs composition design disaster and the learning curve is simply outside of the scope of the average developer. Blend, however, is an amazing tool and may be able breath some life into the ecosystem. Silverlight will be the death of Silverlight, not Canvas or SVG.

ensignavenger• 17 years ago

I really don't see how XAML is that much more complex than SVG, but I'm not really an expert.

f1lt3r3• 17 years ago

I Disagree. I just got back from the Microsoft offices at Boston, and my personal hunch is that Silverlight is being primed for slick one-web device integration. While that may be possible to achieve with numerous languages, the people who seem to be really leading the way are in fact Microsoft:which makes me wonder: was the idea of having "a computer in every home" more a vision of the computer on the Star Ship Enterprise than the idea that everyone would have their own terminal? Judging by Bill Gate's abode, I would think the latter.

I'm not ruling out the possibility of Flash and Silverlight dying to HTML5, I'm just saying that it is unlikely to happen in the near future (even in HTML5) a) because of the people behind them and modern projects they are rolling out and b) because it takes a long time to change from one standard to another unless there is some kind of unforeseen tear in the fabric of hyper-space.

When all is said and done, it always seems come to down to the preference of the developer, which will always remain a diversity.

Microsoft are officially doing "lots of stuff" re: the HTML5 Canvas.

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