Comments

• Roy Schestowitz

  2010-01-11 01:07:30

  Wow, that’s funny. Microsoft has always intended Silverlight to be a general document replacement for html and pdf and other media.

  
  
  Probably XPS actually.

• your_friend

  2010-01-11 04:59:34

  I was thinking of this, which I don't think went anywhere. I can point newer versions of free browsers at www.microsoft.com and see the quick response that lots of gnu/linux caching money gives them. There's strong irony to mono outdoing Microsoft in promoting Silverlight as a flash/web interface replacement.

• your_friend

  2010-01-10 21:34:29

  Wow, that's funny. Microsoft has always intended Silverlight to be a general document replacement for html and pdf and other media. They once said they would base their website on Silverlight but I don't think they have been dumb enough to lock people out of it yet. Is mono that far ahead of the Microsoft crowd? Next thing you know, they will be running IIS on Windows, despite the terrible performance and security.

• Robotron 2084

  2010-01-11 06:04:59

  A reader gives us his insight on Direct X, but why should we listen? Who is this person? Are they an authority on APIs, programming, or Microsoft? A game developer? Anybody special at all? Are they fair, unbiased, and objective?
  
  His credentials may be lacking, but at least he's saying something Roy likes to hear. After all, isn't that what's really important? Quoth the reader, “DirectX only exists in order to keep new games from reaching your platform and to move graphics off your platform." Ouch, sounds bad. But is it true?
  
  No, not at all. DirectX actually exists to make it easier for developers to create applications for Windows using a unified API. Games in particular. Gone are the old days when programs had to be configured to directly access the sound card and only certain 3D cards were supported by some applications. As usual, many forget that DirectX includes not just 3D graphics, but 2D, sound, input, and networking. The whole nine. Microsoft wanted to make it easier to create games for Windows. They did just that.
  
  DirectX was introduced in 1995 and has been in continual development ever since. Where was the open source solution? SDL, the closest equivalent, wasn't released until 3 years later. Too little, too late, too bad. What to do when the "open standard" isn't the leader? Around these parts it's pretty clear. Just remember "SDL". Slander, Defame, and Lie.

• saulgoode

  2010-01-11 07:41:36

  Microsoft's implementation of DirectX was predated by OpenGL; and MS initially partnered with Silicon Graphics to standardize around it -- in yet another episode amongst a litany wherein MS collaborated with "partners" developing standards, only to internally develop, and then deploy their own competing implementation.
  
  Of course, that was the Old Microsoft; nowadays MS always plays fair with their partners or would never attempt to undermine standards.