TM1 Forum

I'm sure that we've all seen an absurd number of YouTube videos which sub-title the "Hitler Rant" scene in the movie Downfall. Most of them are just a series of non sequiturs which don't even remotely tie to the video content, and which the creator stuck over the top hoping that the fame (infamy?) of the clip would disguise the lack of coherent content.

But every so often you come across one where the creator has put in some effort to nail a topic. In this case, Microsoft's ambivalence to the continued development of Silverlight and WPF applications under .Net in Windows 8 and onwards. (The poster of the video is no relation, distant or otherwise.)

If you're on the periphery of Windows development without any strong commitment to a code base but are generally familiar with the WPF/Silverlight vs HTML 5 issue (including the (in)famous "strategy has shifted" comment that {cough} approximately coincided with the departure of Bob Muglia from MSFT), you may find this parody, as I did, laugh out loud material.

If, on the other hand, you've buried yourself in WPF in an attempt to become a Zen master of it for the last couple of years, you're more likely to kick your screen.

For mine, I saw some things in WPF that made me think "hmm, cool, I'd like my app to be able to do that". But, given the way that MS has screwed us over on a number of things in the past (VB6 (which was essentially abandoned, since VB.Net is NOT VB7 onwards), a new data object model every couple of weeks, user level security in Access (which really doesn't matter I suppose since SQL Server makes Access a waste of space IMHO) etc, etc) I wanted to be sure that I wasn't wasting my time especially as I didn't find WPF all that intuitive to work with compared to Windows Forms. But, of course, part of that comes back to me not having put in the time to learn it as well as being rather less enthusiastic than most of the planet about XML and any distant family relatives thereof.

From what I've read I suspect that I would have been wasting my time, so while WinForms won't do everything I'd like they'll do everything that I need, and given the uncertain future of WPF I think that's what I'll stick with.

But with MS being seemingly unable to commit to a technology I must confess that I almost... almost... understand Iboglix doing sod all to develop the .Net API for TM1. (Some of the wilder speculation has tied the downfall of Silverlight / WPF to an eventual downfall of the .Net framework... but if that happens, it's the end of MSFT IMHO. I can't see it in the foreseeable future.)

Windows 7 was the first operating system that I not only bought, I pre-ordered it. Why? It looked like a real step forward (Which I still feel) and it was priced at a point that made sense.

I'm not being funny but they could offer me windows 8 for free and I still don't think I would go for it. I can't see anything (other than for tablets) that would make this appealing. It looks the windows phone OS with some added bits.

For me it's a contender with Windows ME for the worst windows version ever!!!

If I needed an additional excuse to sell my soul to (the current) devil and buy a mac, this is it.

Duncan P wrote:http://xkcd.com/323/

It looks like the effect has returned for windows 8!!!

Alan, I salute you sir for being someone else that won't jump on the WPF bandwagon and hasn't fallen for the lure of XML. I've yet to see a use case for XML where comma delimited doesn't work just fine (although that may simply be because I don't move in the right circles).

I do think .net is here for a while yet. Moving away from VB6 isn't a bad thing. It had been around for a long time (long in my eyes perhaps, perhaps not long compared to say COBOL) and the push towards OO of software developers that VB6 didn't do well was a good thing. Personally I think they handled the death of VB and the transition to C# reasonably well. The writing was on the wall for long enough for people to make plans to transition.

I can see .net being the 'big' thing for a decade to come and well supported for a decade beyond that. I suspect the main reason for developing the tm1 api is that IBM want to tie us into Cognos BI as a reporting solution for TM1. A .NET API will open it up to a lot of other tools (I've just gotten my hands on EV, to my mind that is exactly how TM1 should be accessed. Not through expensively developed reports sitting on a bit of framework glue with a reporting product that doesn't fully integrate with TM1. Apologies if Cog 10 BI addresses some of the basic issues I'm having with 8).

I rue the death of silverlight, I kind of liked it, I got on with it better that flash (but that may be my background) , it installed easy and looked good. HTML 5 seems to have killed it. Although like XML I really don't 'get' HTML 5.

Windows 8 I like. The paradigm shift I still don't quite get. I don't use my win8 laptop for much other than browsing so I guess I haven't had chance to get fully frustrated with it. There are UI elements that suck though. I do love the picture sign on. NOT secure enough for the enterprise or storing my bank passwords on, but I like it. The 'hibernate'/ boot is awesomely fast. I think there's under the hood networking stuff and other things that most of us won't know about but will long term be good things.