arstechnica.com— Lead Mono developer Miguel de Icaza says that an experimental Mono-based Silverlight browser plug-in for Linux could be available for testing by the end of the year.
May 7, 2007View in Crawl 4
Meh, Microsoft hasn't done anything with patents yet so why do you immediately think they are going to start now? Microsoft patents things so that they don't get nailed by a patent troll later on. All companies do this. When is the last time you saw Microsoft and Sun duking it out? Personally, if done properly, Silverlight could be something that basically is the next iteration of what Java applets were in the 90s. (Oh, and Mono has existed up until this point so why do you think its going to change, per say?) I think you're just trying to stir something up where there is nothing to be stirred. I am actually interested that Microsoft is working on plugins for Silverlight for Firefox and Safari (instead of just Internet Explorer).
3.0 didn't come with any updates to the CLR, The CLR is still version 2.0.It just added extentions like WCP, WPF, etc.Now, if they're going to work on Silverlight, that tells me that they're at work on WPF, which I find much more interesting.
@BigBadger (#6559582)I'd rather punch in the balls also than install Microsofts Faux Flash. I just don't really see how this is going to make that much of an improvement to our desktop.
The daft thing about all this is we already have an open source and perfectly capable web app platform in Java Applets. The technical issues are all gone and the JVM is the most efficient VM out there by a measurable distance. The real killer is that Java tends to ship the entire 40MB API with the plugin while Flash just forces you to download the API elements each time you run an applet leading to a ridiculous if distributed bandwidth overhead and .Net has the advantage of being shipped with Windows.What we need is a modular J2SE platform. When you see a Java Applet Firefox pops up 'Hey there's a Java Applet there, download this modular Java platform to run it'. Then the different modules required would be downloaded from Sun and stored locally for future use as and when they are needed.Do this and it becomes technically feasible in the same way Flash is but changing it's reputation is another thing. Sun seems to have waken up over Java since .Net but they still have work to do in order to resurrect the Applet.Other than that I'd rather see effort on Gnash than Silverlight. It's a pity that Gnu are taking on Flash and more capable people like de Icaza are working on Silverlight. I'd much rather see the opposite.
I think that the MonoDevelop team should finish up on the Mono runtime and its IDE before tackling this project.I've come from a background of using Visual Studio .Net and a familiarity with C#. And when I used the Monodevelop IDE, I was constantly looking for documentation about the GTK# interface that didn't exist. Some things like redirecting an error stream after executing a console (bash) command are just about impossible to do. And when using the ide, Creating some elements of the menu involved editing an xml file. This overall, disappointed me as a C# developer and a budding Linux developer. I do hope that those issues will be ironed out in a year or two.Mono development shouldn't be spread thin at this point of development. As I've found many people say... "You can't have a house without its foundation." How would anyone be able to effectively write silverlight applications without a reliable .NET Ide?Can someone tell me why these people are doing such a big mistake?
johnbelloneMay 8, 2007
Meh, Microsoft hasn't done anything with patents yet so why do you immediately think they are going to start now? Microsoft patents things so that they don't get nailed by a patent troll later on. All companies do this. When is the last time you saw Microsoft and Sun duking it out? Personally, if done properly, Silverlight could be something that basically is the next iteration of what Java applets were in the 90s. (Oh, and Mono has existed up until this point so why do you think its going to change, per say?) I think you're just trying to stir something up where there is nothing to be stirred. I am actually interested that Microsoft is working on plugins for Silverlight for Firefox and Safari (instead of just Internet Explorer).
miothegreatMay 8, 2007
3.0 didn't come with any updates to the CLR, The CLR is still version 2.0.It just added extentions like WCP, WPF, etc.Now, if they're going to work on Silverlight, that tells me that they're at work on WPF, which I find much more interesting.
firegrindMay 8, 2007
Yawn.And meh.
macewanMay 8, 2007
@BigBadger (#6559582)I'd rather punch in the balls also than install Microsofts Faux Flash. I just don't really see how this is going to make that much of an improvement to our desktop.
semwMay 8, 2007
> Furthermore, Silverlight will have special "IE only" capabilities.Ummm, no, no it won't. It run fine on Firefox, and Safari. Go try it yourself.
gmorganMay 8, 2007
The daft thing about all this is we already have an open source and perfectly capable web app platform in Java Applets. The technical issues are all gone and the JVM is the most efficient VM out there by a measurable distance. The real killer is that Java tends to ship the entire 40MB API with the plugin while Flash just forces you to download the API elements each time you run an applet leading to a ridiculous if distributed bandwidth overhead and .Net has the advantage of being shipped with Windows.What we need is a modular J2SE platform. When you see a Java Applet Firefox pops up 'Hey there's a Java Applet there, download this modular Java platform to run it'. Then the different modules required would be downloaded from Sun and stored locally for future use as and when they are needed.Do this and it becomes technically feasible in the same way Flash is but changing it's reputation is another thing. Sun seems to have waken up over Java since .Net but they still have work to do in order to resurrect the Applet.Other than that I'd rather see effort on Gnash than Silverlight. It's a pity that Gnu are taking on Flash and more capable people like de Icaza are working on Silverlight. I'd much rather see the opposite.
phlostenMay 9, 2007
Yay, one more thing to avoid.Silverlight is destined for Silverdark-of-the-trash-bin
ilobmirtMay 10, 2007
I think that the MonoDevelop team should finish up on the Mono runtime and its IDE before tackling this project.I've come from a background of using Visual Studio .Net and a familiarity with C#. And when I used the Monodevelop IDE, I was constantly looking for documentation about the GTK# interface that didn't exist. Some things like redirecting an error stream after executing a console (bash) command are just about impossible to do. And when using the ide, Creating some elements of the menu involved editing an xml file. This overall, disappointed me as a C# developer and a budding Linux developer. I do hope that those issues will be ironed out in a year or two.Mono development shouldn't be spread thin at this point of development. As I've found many people say... "You can't have a house without its foundation." How would anyone be able to effectively write silverlight applications without a reliable .NET Ide?Can someone tell me why these people are doing such a big mistake?
jammerdelrayJun 24, 2007
This is great news, I use both Vista and Ubuntu 7.04, nice to have silverlight running on both.