Comments on: Flash Wars: The Many Enemies and Obstacles of Flash http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/ Daniel Eran Dilger in San Francisco Fri, 16 May 2008 06:59:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: russ http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8132 russ Thu, 08 May 2008 07:41:21 +0000 http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8132 Dvorak likes to poke fun at the Mac: it's part of his act. He even admits he does it to drive page views. I don't think it means he's unaware of the deficiencies of MS's software. (What user could not be aware of those?) And Dvorak's explicitly said for some time that a Mac would be a better choice than a PC for most users. It's a good column, though. There's only one place where he showed naivety: "7) Missing drivers. It seems incredible that all of the Windows drivers that worked with XP did not necessarily work with Vista. How does that happen?" What happened is that the drivers shouldn't have been in the kernel and in the original versions of NT weren't. MS moved them in there later for performance reasons. They've now moved many of them back into userland for stability and security reasons. The driver model has changed: that is why. A few minutes with Google would have told him as much. Do the research, John. Reasons 4 and 5 (on HDD drives) don't seem particularly to the point to me. Reason 9 seems linked to reason 8, which is valid as far as it goes. But, yeah, reasons 1 (too many versions), 2 (large and unwieldy codebase), 3 (promised technology missing), 6 (Bogus Vista-capable stickers) are all spot-on. Those are all hugely embarrassing. Reason 11 (Performance should be at the top, not the bottom, of the to-do list) is an interesting one. I've hardly touched Vista, but, AFAIK, you can tweak the settings to favour performance over appearance, although that's not the default. My guess is MS got panicked by the superior UI in OS X, decided it was a big draw for customers, misunderstood the reasons why it's better (seeing it as merely "appearance" and not design) and missed that people won't take appearance at the cost of performance. Certainly, they won't when they can compare: "this runs slower than XP". On the Windows' UI and how it *still* misses even in Vista see the screenshot and explanation here: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.ars That's from an interesting series at Ars Technica: "From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user's conversion" by Peter Bright, who's a developer who's switched over. But it's a good piece from Dvorak. Nothing new there, but he summarizes well. Dvorak likes to poke fun at the Mac: it’s part of his act. He even admits he does it to drive page views. I don’t think it means he’s unaware of the deficiencies of MS’s software. (What user could not be aware of those?) And Dvorak’s explicitly said for some time that a Mac would be a better choice than a PC for most users.

It’s a good column, though. There’s only one place where he showed naivety:

“7) Missing drivers. It seems incredible that all of the Windows drivers that worked with XP did not necessarily work with Vista. How does that happen?”

What happened is that the drivers shouldn’t have been in the kernel and in the original versions of NT weren’t. MS moved them in there later for performance reasons. They’ve now moved many of them back into userland for stability and security reasons. The driver model has changed: that is why. A few minutes with Google would have told him as much. Do the research, John.

Reasons 4 and 5 (on HDD drives) don’t seem particularly to the point to me. Reason 9 seems linked to reason 8, which is valid as far as it goes.

But, yeah, reasons 1 (too many versions), 2 (large and unwieldy codebase), 3 (promised technology missing), 6 (Bogus Vista-capable stickers) are all spot-on. Those are all hugely embarrassing.

Reason 11 (Performance should be at the top, not the bottom, of the to-do list) is an interesting one. I’ve hardly touched Vista, but, AFAIK, you can tweak the settings to favour performance over appearance, although that’s not the default. My guess is MS got panicked by the superior UI in OS X, decided it was a big draw for customers, misunderstood the reasons why it’s better (seeing it as merely “appearance” and not design) and missed that people won’t take appearance at the cost of performance. Certainly, they won’t when they can compare: “this runs slower than XP”.

On the Windows’ UI and how it *still* misses even in Vista see the screenshot and explanation here:

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.ars

That’s from an interesting series at Ars Technica: “From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user’s conversion” by Peter Bright, who’s a developer who’s switched over.

But it’s a good piece from Dvorak. Nothing new there, but he summarizes well.

]]> By: beanie http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8131 beanie Thu, 08 May 2008 07:41:08 +0000 http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8131 Flash's Windows installer is about 1MB. Silverlight's Windows installer is also about 1MB. So both are quick and easy to install. Microsoft has no deployment advantage. Microsoft's current actions look more like co-exist with Flash. Microsoft's websites use a mixture of Flash and Silverlight. A couple of months ago, Microsoft licensed Flash Lite 3 for the next release of Windows Mobile. So Windows Mobile can support both Flash Lite and Silverlight. Flash’s Windows installer is about 1MB. Silverlight’s Windows installer is also about 1MB. So both are quick and easy to install. Microsoft has no deployment advantage.

Microsoft’s current actions look more like co-exist with Flash. Microsoft’s websites use a mixture of Flash and Silverlight. A couple of months ago, Microsoft licensed Flash Lite 3 for the next release of Windows Mobile. So Windows Mobile can support both Flash Lite and Silverlight.

]]> By: Michael http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8108 Michael Tue, 06 May 2008 23:43:11 +0000 http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8108 Admittedly, this isn't iPhone related, but still someone has to point this out :) http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2286065,00.asp Check out John Dvorak's speel on the FLAWS of Windows Vista... he's finally waking up and smelling reality. Admittedly, this isn’t iPhone related, but still someone has to point this out :)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2286065,00.asp

Check out John Dvorak’s speel on the FLAWS of Windows Vista… he’s finally waking up and smelling reality.

]]> By: russ http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8105 russ Tue, 06 May 2008 21:00:28 +0000 http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/06/flash-wars-the-many-enemies-and-obstacles-of-flash/#comment-8105 It's interesting that privacy should come to the fore in these discussions. It looks like that may be an issue with JavaFX, too: Sun's JavaFX to hoover-up user data: http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/05/06/javafx_privacy/ It’s interesting that privacy should come to the fore in these discussions. It looks like that may be an issue with JavaFX, too:

Sun’s JavaFX to hoover-up user data:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/05/06/javafx_privacy/

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