The key to Cringely’s argument [...]]]> A couple of days ago I was sent a link to Robert Cringely’s latest treatise:  The second coming of Java – and to say I disagreed was a bit of an understatement. To me, it represents a fundamental flaw in his perception of developers, and more importantly the economics of software development.

The key to Cringely’s argument comes down to this:

When SSDs gain enough capacity there will be a shift from the Ruby world back to the Java world. Not for prototyping, because, well, it’s prototyping. But simply because the statement “Ruby is incredibly slow but I don’t care because my database is slower” will no longer be true.

What he’s missing here is the real reason people use frameworks like Rails; it’s not about it being Ruby, or being the latest cool thing – it’s about developer productivity. That’s it, and that’s all there is to it – Rails allows a developer to do more in less time. That’s one of the key reasons so many Java web developers jumped ship (though I can think of a few others), and what pushed Microsoft to invest so heavily in their MVC framework.

I could fully rehash the argument, but in what I consider to be one of Jeff Atwood’s best articles,  Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive, he covers a key point to my argument – developer time is vastly more expensive than hardware. Atwood’s take on the issue is clear:

Clearly, hardware is cheap, and programmers are expensive. Whenever you’re provided an opportunity to leverage that imbalance, it would be incredibly foolish not to.

When there’s a choice between developer productivity, and spending money on hardware – the conclusion should be the same. It’s much cheaper to throw more hardware at a slower framework than it is to invest more developer time in a faster framework. For any non-trivial application, throwing more front-end servers at it will always be cheaper than slowing the development process down with a non-productivity-centric toolkit.

It’s simple economics; server hardware is getting faster and cheaper, developer time is only getting more expensive.

#embedly_twitter_14054401{background:url(http://a2.twimg.com/profile_background_images/71955358/DSCF0658.jpg) #C0DEED; padding:20px;} #embedly_twitter_14054401 p{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 0px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} #embedly_twitter_14054401 .embedly_tweet_content{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} #embedly_twitter_14054401 p span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:0px;height:40px; padding-bottom: 12px;} #embedly_twitter_14054401 p span.metadata span.author{line-height:15px;color:#999;font-size:14px} #embedly_twitter_14054401 p span.metadata span.author a{line-height:15px;font-size:20px;vertical-align:middle} #embedly_twitter_14054401 p [...]]]> Earlier today, a rather surprising tweet hit, being retweeted at least 80 times, including by a few rather influential people in the .NET world:

Needless to say, that’s not an announcement that anybody was expecting, but given the talk going on at the time – and the high-profile people talking about it, there wasn’t much reason to doubt. Announcing a product that has been dead for years is going open source would certainly be a strategy shift for Microsoft, but does it make any sense? Kevin Dente of Herding Code fame certainly thought that Microsoft had better things to release:

Shortly after the initial tweet, Doug Seven, the Director of Product Management, Visual Studio Tools & Languages, replied asking Roy Osherove (the original poster) to email him. Hmm, it’s starting to smell like something odd is going on. A couple of hours later, Doug set the story straight:

To which, Roy then tried to unset:

It’s worth pointing out that Roy Osherove currently has a full ten-times the followers that Doug Seven has, meaning his altered retweet was seen by more people (at least initially). For several hours word was going around, and accepted by a number of people who thought Microsoft was actually going to open the code to VB6 (including journalists who were too busy writing articles to do any fact checking) – all based on one person who made it all up.

Lesson here: be careful about what you re-tweet, it’s easy to endorse a lie as several people unwittingly did today (@blowdart summed it rather well).

#embedly_twitter_49162990{background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/3222238/blacks_beach.jpg) #000000; padding:20px;} #embedly_twitter_49162990 p{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 0px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} #embedly_twitter_49162990 .embedly_tweet_content{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} #embedly_twitter_49162990 p span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:0px;height:40px; padding-bottom: 12px;} #embedly_twitter_49162990 p span.metadata span.author{line-height:15px;color:#999;font-size:14px} #embedly_twitter_49162990 p span.metadata span.author a{line-height:15px;font-size:20px;vertical-align:middle} #embedly_twitter_49162990 p span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 10px 0 [...]]]> While looking at the reactions to Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, I found one tweet that really stood out:

While many users are busy joking about names (personally my money is on “Microsoft Live Skype” – my only hope is that there isn’t an “Ultimate Edition” or “Unicorn Edition” tacked to the end of the name) Microsoft has a significant problem, and I really hope they are looking at public reaction. Users are concerned; what will Microsoft do to the brand, and how will the brand and service change – users need to be reassured that what they love about the service won’t go away.

I use Skype on a daily basis, and for me this brings back memories of AOL’s failed acquisition of Nullsoft (the maker of WinAmp) in 1999, which took a great piece of software and a well-respected brand, and rendered it little better than RealPlayer (and don’t get me started on the Netscape acquisition). I can see this easily going down the same path; as the brand is diluted and merged with others to help boost their marketing goals, and the software is integrated tightly with other products (creating that tight, but invasive feel that the EU had so many issue with when they did it with IE); they could easily find themselves in the same position that eBay did back in 2007.

Microsoft desperately needs to build their online brand to recover the billions that they are losing, and I have to assume they see Skype as a key player in this quest; the question is can the keep their newly acquired user-base from jumping ship.

I don’t think Skype will live or die on technology at this point, I think PR is a far larger issue for them right now.

… To that end, we are changing Chrome’s [...]]]> In a somewhat (but not entirely) surprising announcement, Google is removing support for H.264 video from Chrome. This change to their implementation of the often controversial HTML5 <video> tag is both a major step by Google and a furtherance of the already complicated world of video online.

… To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5  support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

When Google released WebM (a royalty-free codec which Google acquired as part of On2), it was clear that the intention was to take on H.264 and with this move there seems little doubt that the gauntlet has been thrown down. Although, now that H.264 has such a strong base (it’s included in Flash, IE9, Safari, Mobile Safari, and Android), it really makes one wonder if Google has picked a fight that has long since been lost.

So why would Google do this?

Here’s my best guess: Money (specifically, patent licensing).

H.264 is heavily encumbered by numerous patents owned by companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Cisco, and controlled by MPEG LA, the consortium charged with turning these patents into profit (here’s the 70 page list of patents for those interested). While I’m sure many people recall that MPEG LA made a very public pledge that H.264 would be free forever, as is often the case, things aren’t quite that simple.

Peter Csathy wrote a fairly detailed post on the matter, pointing out some key details that many in the media skipped. Here’s the core of what wasn’t discussed after the MPEG LA announcement (but should have been):

But, you say, MPEG LA recently announced that it will no longer charge royalties for the use of H.264. Yes, it’s true – MPEG LA recently bowed to mounting pressure from, and press surrounding, WebM and announced something that kind of sounds that way. But, I caution you to read the not-too-fine print. H.264 is royalty-free only in one limited case – for Internet video that is delivered free to end users. Read again: for (1) Internet delivery that is (2) delivered free to end users. In the words of MPEG LA’s own press release, “Products and services other than [those] continue to be royalty-bearing.”

Mike Shaver, Mozilla’s VP of Engineering offer’s a somewhat similar take in “Free as in Smokescreen:”

What MPEG-LA announced is that their current moratorium on charging fees for the transmission of H.264 content, previously extended through 2015 for uses that don’t charge users, is now permanent. You still have to pay for a license for H.264 if you want to make things that create it, consume it, or your business model for distributing it is direct rather than indirect.

What they’ve made permanently free is distribution of content that people have already licensed to encode, and will need a license to decode. This is similar to Nikon announcing that they will not charge you if you put your pictures up on Flickr, or HP promising that they will never charge you additionally if you photocopy something that you printed on a LaserJet.

I’m just waiting for one of the licensors to reinterpret the license and claim that ads constitute a form of payment or some similar excuse to exclude them from the exception they granted. I’ve yet to get my hands on the latest licensing agreement to see exactly what it says about this, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see this card played at some point to wring extra revenue from these patents.

Given that Google owns the massive video sharing site YouTube, which uses H.264, plus whatever unknown projects relating to Google TV – it stands to reason that Google would certainly save some money by moving away from such an encumbered technology; not to mention avoid future risk should rules change. Though personally, I also have to wonder if it could be fears of a repeat of the GIF patent debacle.

Now where does this leave us?

Right now HTML5 <video> is a mess, at best. There is a war for which codec becomes the de facto standard, and there is a lot of money at stake depending on who wins. At this point there is no single codec that works across all major browsers; to get full coverage the best option now looks to be a combination of H.264, WebM, and Flash. Doesn’t really sound like the progress that was promised with HTML5 does it?

It’s worth noting though that Google isn’t the first browser developer to reject H.264; both Firefox and Opera have decided against including it in their browsers as well. As painful as the fragmentation is now in regard to who supports what, this move by Google actually does little to change the landscape. Support has been fragmented from the beginning, and all this really does it push H.264 a step away from being the de facto standard; a title that it has been very close to seizing.

Had Firefox added support for H.264, I think the fight would be over and would have made today’s announcement almost suicidal for the project. Though with such a major player holding out against it, Google’s move becomes a minor tactical shift in the short-term (though the long-term impact could be significant).

I could go on for pages about what works are where we are now, but Mark Pilgrim (an infinitely better writer than I) sums it all up here: “Dive into HTML5: Video on the Web” – well worth reading if you want to really understand what’s going on.

So in summary – video needs to be encoded to multiple formats, which today’s announcement does little to alter due to the fragmentation that was already in place. In the long run, WebM may be better for the community due to its license, though many of the internet’s biggest players have a vested interest in H.264. So when you factor in politics and propaganda between competing companies, distrust, and possible patent claims that haven’t been addressed yet; this all leads me to an even simpler summary:

Yesterday, HTML5 <video> was a mess; tomorrow it will still be a mess.

Though the tools needed for development seem to be public, I’ve yet to see the end-user run-time; [...]]]> It looks like the core Silverlight 3 tools are now available:

• Microsoft Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow RC
• Microsoft® Silverlight™ 3 SDK
• Microsoft® Silverlight™ 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• Deep Zoom Composer

Though the tools needed for development seem to be public, I’ve yet to see the end-user run-time; though I imagine we’ll see that in the release anticipated for tomorrow.

Time to have some fun.

Update: Client run-time is now available.

These guidelines are crucial to ensure the most consistent user experience possible. Though [...]]]> For those that missed it (like me), the Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines has been updated with some additional content. This update add content in the following areas:

• Software Branding
• Confirmations
• Warnings
• Toolbars
• Sound
• Icons

These guidelines are crucial to ensure the most consistent user experience possible. Though many don’t, this is a document that all developers should read. I firmly believe that consistency is the most important single factor in design, and following an established style such as this is a great way to ensure that a UI is as consistent as possible.

If you’d like some background reading, the XP version is still available.

Scott Hanselman [...]]]> The great Lutz Roeder has released a new version of the .NET Reflector. From what I’ve seen; this version is extremely nice. This has long been a required tool of any serious developer. With this update Reflector has reinforced its position in the list of tools you just can’t live without.

Scott Hanselman provides a great review; check it out for the details on what’s new.

On my main PC (with 1GB RAM), [...]]]> Using Vista? Then I highly recommend getting a decent 1GB+ thumb drive, and use it for ReadyBoost; while the FAQ says 256MB is enough, for best performance I’d shoot for more. There is little difference under normal operation, it’s under high loads that ReadyBoost really shines.

On my main PC (with 1GB RAM), I would see fairly frequent freezes when several applications were open (primarily when memory utilization passed 80%). With a minor upgrade to 1.5GB RAM, and a 1GB thumb-drive* for ReadyBoost, the system became much more stable. This may be among the best new features in Vista.

I’ve frequently blasted Vista for the poor performance compared to XP, but with a few tweaks, it runs quite well.

* These drives (SanDisk Cruzer Mirco U3) work well, once to get the drivers working properly. If possible, pick a different drive; these are a pain at times.