01 November 2010
Halloween is over, so it is time to quit being scared and get back to reality.
This is, perhaps, easier for me, because my wife and I attended the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear over the weekend. There’s nothing like being surrounded by 200,000+ sane people on a beautiful afternoon in Washington DC to refresh your spirit and appreciation for the true strength of America (and I think humanity in general).
Of course while we were enjoying great music, comedy and an inspirational speech by Jon Stewart, the Microsoft developer world was turning itself inside out with the hyperbole generated by last week’s PDC conference and some less than thoroughly explained remarks made by Bob Muglia in an interview.
My reaction, perhaps tempered by hours of restoring sanity, was relatively simple:
- Microsoft (and BobMu) clearly didn’t intend to gut their entire client-side development community
- Therefore this is just a (perhaps big) PR mistake, nothing more
- Therefore it is best to just wait for Microsoft to correct the mistake with clarification
I feel justified in that reaction, since we now have clarification from BobMu and SteveB:
- Bob Muglia on the Silverlight Team Blog: http://team.silverlight.net
- Steve Ballmer on his PDC blog: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2010/nov10/11-01Statement.mspx
Other Microsoft Silverlight bloggers, such as Tim Heuer, are starting to blog as well, so I’m sure there’ll be further reinforcement and refinement of these top-level responses. And I would expect to see continuing movement on the part of Microsoft and its product groups to prove their ongoing top-level commitment to Silverlight and the whole idea of a Microsoft-based smart-client experience.
I think what happened is this: at least in the US we’re just a day away from a big election. For weeks (months?) we’ve been bombarded with messages of fear and hatred from political candidates, political action committees and cable news channels. It is very challenging to maintain a positive or even moderate outlook on life itself when you are continually inundated (unless you never watch television or listen to the radio or go to your mailbox) by these vile messages from every side for weeks or months on end.
It is no surprise to me that the developers, at least in the US, fell right into the same fear/hatred mindset with the (clearly incongruous) information about Silverlight – everyone’s mind is already primed for a fight-or-flight response. Confusion leads instantly to fear, which (as we all know) leads to the dark side.
After tomorrow, the election will be over, along with the fear/hate ads. By the time our brain chemistry has returned to normal, the newly elected politicians will be well down the path of corporate-sponsored corruption and life will continue.
In the meantime, at least we now know (again) that Silverlight has a bright future as the smart client development tool of choice for Windows, the Mac, Windows Phone and other devices.