Just wanted to let you know that you screwed up.. Big. I just got my Chrome OS notebook, and guess what I can't use... Thats right - I can't use the Online Character Builder.. Silverlight does not support Chrome OS. I have the netbook that you practically designed the online version of the character builder for, and it won't work. All because of Silverlight. Whomever made that decision should not get a pay bonus this year. In fact, they royally screwed up and you might consider firing them and putting someone more competent on your team.
I mean, I have the computer that cannot use an offline builder, so I would be the biggest proponent to an online-only builder. It would be perfect for me... but you used Silverlight. Epic Fail!
I dont see anywhere noted that it was designed for the chrome notebook.
Yeah, they just claimed it was cross platform compatible and talked about iPads, iPods, and iPhones...
I dont see anywhere noted that it was designed for the chrome notebook.
Yeah, you kind of missed the point. The point wasn't that they claimed to support it. The point was that they didn't have the forsight to decide to support it. To give you an analogy: It would be like they designed an app for a smart phone, but then didn't decide to choose a plateform that wouldn't allow it to work with the iphone or android. Wizard's giant mistake is their lack of foresight.
Chrome OS is coming - Will the DDI be ready?
Now a note to the Wizard's Executives.. If you have any employees read that line and they say "We don't need chrome OS! We can make apps for The Cloud without it." Take that employee out and fire them. They are bad for business.
You have about a year before Chrome OS starts to hit the market... Now is the time to start moving away from Silverlight and start moving towards technologies that work for everyone..
And these lines are for the Wizard's executives who don't yet get it:
Silverlight = Bad.
Chrome OS = Good.
Generic Internet = Good.
Support for everyone = Good.
Silverlight + Employee who likes it = Fired Employee.
And remember that Good also means more $$$ for you while still protecting your IP.
Got that?
I dont see anywhere noted that it was designed for the chrome notebook.
Yeah, you kind of missed the point. The point wasn't that they claimed to support it. The point was that they didn't have the forsight to decide to support it. To give you an analogy: It would be like they designed an app for a smart phone, but then didn't decide to choose a plateform that wouldn't allow it to work with the iphone or android. Wizard's giant mistake is their lack of foresight.
Chrome OS is coming - Will the DDI be ready?
Now a note to the Wizard's Executives.. If you have any employees read that line and they say "We don't need chrome OS! We can make apps for The Cloud without it." Take that employee out and fire them. They are bad for business.
You have about a year before Chrome OS starts to hit the market... Now is the time to start moving away from Silverlight and start moving towards technologies that work for everyone..
And these lines are for the Wizard's executives who don't yet get it:
Silverlight = Bad.
Chrome OS = Good.
Generic Internet = Good.
Support for everyone = Good.
Silverlight + Employee who likes it = Fired Employee.
And remember that Good also means more $$$ for you while still protecting your IP.
Got that?
Talking to them like they are kindergartners won't help. Then again they treat their customers like we are 4 years old, so maybe that's the level of communication they are shooting for. I agree though:
Silverlight = less customers
Chrome OS = some customers
Any OS = some customers
Generic Internet = MOST customers
Employees advocating specific OS or Platform that is not completely compatible with all major platforms = No $$$.
Edit: I'd add that giving the development team enough time to finish the product should rank high on their list also...
While chrome OS may indeed be the furure it is not mainstream yet and only in a pilot program. So designing it specifically for that is foolish at the moment. By the time Chrome OS actually comes out it might support silverlight. Ever think of that?
It's not a question of designing specifically for ChromeOS. It's a case of having the foresight to design generic, standards compliant systems/applications. When you do that, they tend to run anywhere (OS X, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc...)
So, rather than designing specifcally for ChromeOS, they just need to stop using non-portable frameworks. The problem then solves itself.
While chrome OS may indeed be the furure it is not mainstream yet and only in a pilot program. So designing it specifically for that is foolish at the moment. By the time Chrome OS actually comes out it might support silverlight. Ever think of that?
It's not a question of designing specifically for ChromeOS. It's a case of having the foresight to design generic, standards compliant systems/applications. When you do that, they tend to run anywhere (OS X, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc...)
So, rather than designing specifcally for ChromeOS, they just need to stop using non-portable frameworks. The problem then solves itself.
Exactly. Every wonder why Foresight was a 9th level spell? It is because Wizards found the concept so difficult that they equated it to making a Wish.
But seriously, Wizards ditch silverlight. Educate yourselves on web technologies that are actually widely supported, then pick one and use it to build a better DDI. --A DDI that everyone can use. It isn't that hard.
While chrome OS may indeed be the furure it is not mainstream yet and only in a pilot program. So designing it specifically for that is foolish at the moment. By the time Chrome OS actually comes out it might support silverlight. Ever think of that?
It's not a question of designing specifically for ChromeOS. It's a case of having the foresight to design generic, standards compliant systems/applications. When you do that, they tend to run anywhere (OS X, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, etc...)
So, rather than designing specifcally for ChromeOS, they just need to stop using non-portable frameworks. The problem then solves itself.
If ANY portable platform was as easy to develop in as .NET then the problem would solve itself. Since that will never happen (you get what you pay for) you will always have companies trying to get projects done in a shorter time period by accepting less availability (portability perhaps?).
If ANY portable platform was as easy to develop in as .NET then the problem would solve itself. Since that will never happen (you get what you pay for) you will always have companies trying to get projects done in a shorter time period by accepting less availability (portability perhaps?).
I'll skip the debate about which frameworks are easiest to develop in, as that's rather subjective. And at this point, arguing about the fact that they chose Silverlight is water under the bridge. (It's fairly well documented why they did it, even if I don't personally agree with the choice.)
We'd be better served by trying to influence better architectural decisions going forward, not railing against the poor choices already made (and implemented).
hmm.. seems like it's either silverlight or Flash. Java is outdated and falling to the wayside.
If they chose Flash, they lose Iphone/Ipad. Still people out in the cold. Is it their fault that Apple decided to not support flash? No. Is it their fault people want an open source, free(or whatever reason they chose) OS that has no way yet to use Silverlight? No.
they can't win, can they? They picked one, and and are using it. They can't support everyone.
Lets see. Silverlight -v- Flash -v- Java.
hmm.. seems like it's either silverlight or Flash. Java is outdated and falling to the wayside.
If they chose Flash, they lose Iphone/Ipad. Still people out in the cold. Is it their fault that Apple decided to not support flash? No. Is it their fault people want an open source, free(or whatever reason they chose) OS that has no way yet to use Silverlight? No.
they can't win, can they? They picked one, and and are using it. They can't support everyone.
Actually, they could invest in HTML 5 technology using javascript and canvas. That will be globally supported by all browsers that support HTML 5 standards. Heck - they really only need canvas if they want to do fancy animations and graphics. Javascript is also highly supported on the web with many libraries (most open source - jquery, etc) that can greatly speed development time.
Since they already make you d/l and install silverlight, it isn't a big stretch to have them make you download an updated browser (or install chrome frames in an old version of IE).
HTML 5 and the canvas object are currently supported by a huge number of browsers and is basically platform independant.
To make things easier for them, they could technologies like drupal or django for the backend (or anything similar that is available).
They already use XML and CSS technologies for displaying data to you, so it isn't a big stretch to just make the whole client web based.
That's exactly what I'm saying. It could have been done completely in java-script, CSS, HTML, PHP, ASPX, or any other server side + client side mix and it would have worked perfectly on most platforms, the exception would be crappy phones...
Right, and those people would be here complaining that it doesn't work and that WotC are doing bad business and they should make it work on their phones, and tablets because they use them at the table, etc, etc, etc.
Not to mention that they now have control over copy/paste. because everything is encapsulated in the silverlight coccoon. That seems to be something of an issue. You don't get that luxury with other programing.
A non-OS-specific language would have been much more open to use at release, and become progressively more usable as technology improved. Silverlight is usable on two OSs at release, and it doesn't look too promising that a vast amount more will open.
That's exactly what I'm saying. It could have been done completely in java-script, CSS, HTML, PHP, ASPX, or any other server side + client side mix and it would have worked perfectly on most platforms, the exception would be crappy phones...
Right, and those people would be here complaining that it doesn't work and that WotC are doing bad business and they should make it work on their phones, and tablets because they use them at the table, etc, etc, etc.
Sure, there will always be complainers, but many of the current complainers would be satisfied. Actually I was talking about non 'smart' phones, el cheapo phones. If the tablet/smart phone has a decent browser (say Opera or Firefox) it would work fine.
Not to mention that they now have control over copy/paste. because everything is encapsulated in the silverlight coccoon. That seems to be something of an issue. You don't get that luxury with other programing.
Actually with java-script you can set up key combo blockers that when pressed they clear the clipboard. There are a million work arounds, all of which are completely unnecessary. If people want the data it WILL be hacked. There is only a single encryption scheme I haven't seen cracked and that is the non-UMD Playstation Portable public key encryption. Worrying about copy/paste is a fools errand...
There is nothing stopping WotC from adding an HTML5 front end as an extra option to the Silverlight front end using the same back end logic for both. The question (as it stands now) becomes, with all their digital initiatives how important is this particular feature compared to anything else. How many customers actually benefit from such a feature (saturation) right now? Like it or not WotC needs to target their content delivery to the largest percentage of potential customers, not just the few here griping about their "pet feature" (in this case I'm talking about a possible CB HTML5 front end, but really it could be any feature). And before anyone says it, yes I know that it is likely that those here could be representative of the larger population and then again they might not be.
The bottom line is that the web wasn't designed to handle rich applications and adding a bunch of bells and whistles on top of it really doesn't work.
Now, HTML 5 might be different. I honestly haven't used it (I haven't even visited a site that uses it) but I assume it still might suffer from some of the limitations if general web development even if it is the second coming.
I'm dubious about the Web 2.0 stuff. I've made several AJAX apps for intance and Javascript is a mess to code in even with libraries. Then you have to worry about HTML and CSS and different standards in different browsers and even the best of the web 2.0 apps (google docs, maybe?) pale from a UI perpective in comparison to their desktop equivalents (MS Office or Open Office, I guess).
The bottom line is that the web wasn't designed to handle rich applications and adding a bunch of bells and whistles on top of it really doesn't work.
Now, HTML 5 might be different. I honestly haven't used it (I haven't even visited a site that uses it) but I assume it still might suffer from some of the limitations if general web development even if it is the second coming.
The problem is the CB doesn't need bells and whistles. It just needs buttons, pull-down lists, pop-up dialogs, etc..etc... It isn't that complex a program. It uses a little math behind the scenes, but nothing difficult to implement...
I could see this complaint if you were to want to build the VT this way, but not the CB...
If you use html and css, there are so many browser differences and hacks, that some companies use things like flash and now silverlight. I'm not into using either, but I can see why they do.
I like html and css with ajax and php/mysql, but eh, whatever. I have yet to get into html 5, and think it will be ok in a couple years. Even then, there will be issues with browsers because, face it, someone's gonna go against the grain.
As far as the copy paste thing, there are always ways to get the data, but limiting it to a contained silverlight app makes it much more difficult to get it. Javascript can do noclicks all day. View source works fine. It just makes it harder.
Also, I'm all for something that doesn't look like it was made in 1994, you know?
