Tuesday, February 11, 2025

HTML5 Gets Top Billing From Microsoft, Developers Ponder the Future

Developers are rightly concerned about Microsoft’s sudden focus shift towards HTML5, and away from Silverlight. A development platform that’s based on HTML5 and JavaScript may be good for the web, but bad for developers who have invested in a Java or .NET skillset.

Why would developers be under the assumption that Microsoft is ditching .NET and Silverlight in favor of HTML5? For one, there’s Microsoft’s Julie Larson-Green, of the Windows Experience team, as she was talking about a weather app. She stated that it uses “our new developer platform, which is, uhh, it’s based on HTML5 and JavaScript.” After that statement, bells began to go off in developer’s heads.

One area of concern is development tools for HTML5 and JavaScript, or the lack thereof. Will developers be required to give up their beloved Visual Studio development environment, when they haven’t been presented with any viable alternatives? Will Microsoft be announcing new development tools to take up the slack and encourage developers to join the HTML5 revolution?

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