DIGG IT! I took a deep look at Avalon/XAML at FITC. I am going to be very blunt, Avalon is pure crap. It is very hardware dependent and requires over 250MB of software to run.&
Here is what you currently need to run Avalon and execute XAML:
1. .NET Runtime 2.0 - 41.7 MB
2. Avalon Libraries - 200MB (From MS team at FITC!!)
3. A high-end video card - "ATI Radeon 9600, nVidia GeForce 4, or better"
So if Avalon were a Player, it would be 241.7 MB in size. This is insane any way you look at it.
Obesity aside, I just do not see the value that this provides to the end user. In the FiTC demos, MS provided few solutions that any client I know would actually pay money for. One example showed "Video on a Sphere", I cannot think of a single application today that could make money or provide benefit making something like this.
Here is the value:
1. 250MB installation size
2. High hardware requirements
3. Little end user value
4. 100% Eye Candy
If you ask me, after seeing it in person and talking to MS engineers, this may be the largest single mistake in Microsoft history.
Ted ;)
Pssff... whateva' cracka, don't knock it till you try it. The next Windows (better) have all of that installed anyway, so now all you should care about is using my (then) 2 year-old video card, which 'll be 30 bucks. Course, by then, most 1 year old machines wil only be 2 video card gens away.
...you just have high expectations "Mr. FLOWmaster".
Jesse,
Good point about the cards, but 250Mb is one obese graphics layer in the OS. Plus patches and upgrades are going to be huge and by the time they release I bet there are .NET 3.0 dependencies.
I will stick with Flash as the client.
Ted ;)
also i guess that means this is strictly a windows solution? that sux
Don't ever like being in the position of defending Microsoft, but in this case, I think it is a little hard to be called useless.
Obese, yes, but how much more obese is it than the graphics layer that OSX runs on?
Remembering back when I had a 130 MB drive, I would install games that took up 5 to 10% of my whole hard drive.
The whole avalon framework only takes up ~1.25% of a 200 GB drive, and this is a framework that any app can use and build upon.
Judging from the other requirements of Longhorn, this seems like a drop in the bucket. Minimum of a GIG of RAM etc....
Avalon will have its niches... it will make hardware accellerated media easier to produce. It will NOT make life any easier for cross platform developers, but it WILL make it easier to deploy rich media apps on the M$ platform.
Right now Flash is the only cross-platform rich media client that has any sort of market penetration, so I don't think I'll be leaving it as my primary dev environment for a while. Even so, I can envision Macromedia releasing an 'Avalon-ehnanced' flash player that could benefit from hardware acceleration if it exists and piggyback on top of any pre-existing infrastructure that a user has. Otherwise if would fall back to the standard software renderer...
This seems so familiar... oh, yeah, that's what the shockwave plugin does :0)
It's good fun to dig into it tho (XAMLON is great!).
The .NET framework in general is really is pretty revolutionary, no matter how obvious some of the ideas now sound with hindsight (but it's such as shame that it requires such huge computer requirements). I'd hope a lot of the AVALON size comes from shared libraries, integration with other technologies, compatibility with *everything* (that is what the new MS is about after all - convergence).
Yes, FLOW... (when!? ;)
Bob. They can never top Bob.
The .NET framework is really great. I am strictly talking about the Avalon/XAML/Sparky. I have written my share of ASP.NET apps to know how good that solution is.
I just think that Avalon/XAML/Sparky will not work as a system. Any RIA platform that requires over 3MB installed will not achieve critical mass. Let alone 250MB with hardware required.
Ted ;)
Another useless rant. It is good that the MacOSX visual framework quartz is integrated or else that would have been argued also.
You are making yourself pretty ridiculous by your arguments.
Let's correct this size issue.
To run avalon on XP you need the framework and avalon.
The Avalon.msi is 10 meg.
It looks like to me someone tried to include VisualStudio in their numbers, and that is not Avalon.
You can run Avalon in software mode. So you don't need a high end card. Please don't confuse LongHorn with Avalon.
ERain doesn't think Avalon is a dead end with their Zam3D announcement.
Video on a sphere shows the power of the platform. How you use it is up to the designer. The point is that the designer has more creative options than before. I think watching a video, and having it morph into a sphere and bounce into position for transition effects is not a bad thing.
My suggestion is for Flash to embrace Avalon. Both can co-exist with great results for everyone.
So basicaly the total size as you see it is:
1. .NET Runtime 2.0 - 41.7 MB
2. Avalon.msi Library - 10MB
3. optional video card via software rendering
That would be much better but 51.7MB is still huge. It is no longer obese but still grossly overweight for what the end user will download.
Even using your numbers it still doesn't make any sense. I question any RIA capability could be successfuly adopted with a base player install larger than 10Mb let alone 51.7Mb or 250MB.
Ted ;)
Ted, you should really get your facts right... apparently it was video on not one but *two* spheres. That's art, man.
And so what if the Notepad demo crashed... these are complex applications we're talking about! Notepad on a sphere? Bring it on baby! :)
Very cool post, but you said
---------------------
Here is what you currently need to run Avalon and execute XAML:
1. .NET Runtime 2.0 - 41.7 MB
2. Avalon Libraries - 200MB (From MS team at FITC!!)
3. A high-end video card - "ATI Radeon 9600, nVidia GeForce 4, or better"
-----------------------
You miss something, You need WINDOWS XP or a NON FREE microsoft Operating System, so makes your post event better, not only you have to install of the software and have a huge video card, you need also a license version of win OS, and still NOT CROSS PLATFORM. !
Avalon isn't trying to become a cross-platform RIA solution. Intranet apps are still big business. What do you think is the ratio of internal Windows apps to public cross-platform ones? What is the ratio of Visual Basic developers to Flash developers?
The Avalon demos at FITC were mostly eye candy and should have been more balanced, but at the same time it was a technical audience, not a business one. There are other Longhorn demos online that speak to end users and focus on solving business problems. The Google Maps demo by Xamlon (http://www.xamlon.com/flash/demos/mapserver/) would have been good to show. It's deployed in Flash, but written in XAML and C#, which deserve at least some of the credit for the short development time (3 days).
I'm not sure what "a deep look" means, based on what you commented on. What about Avalon's architecture, components, styling/skinning mechanisms, dev tools, designer/developer interaction (separating UI from code). You and I have written ASP.NET apps--now that mark-up/code-behind model is coming to Windows apps. That in itself is a huge benefit over Windows Forms currently.
Flash will have the cross-platform and penetration advantage for years to come. Fine. But maybe part of "the reality" is that Avalon isn't disadvantaged to Flash in every area. Did you see any advantages at all?
And maybe Microsoft isn't trying to compete with the Flash RIA market because it's small potatoes to them. For Flash developers and designers, the market for vector-based expressive applications is only going to expand with the release of Avalon. Also good news is that XAML is kinda like MXML and C# is kinda like AS2, so that helps with the learning curve to get into that market. Loyal to Flash? You can build Flash apps in Visual Studio with Xamlon.
Some people see it in terms of "who wins, who loses" but it isn't necessarily that way.
Robert,
I clearly believe that defining the UI in XML is great.
Application UI's are typically Tree based, so XML is a
natural fit for describing this hierarchy.
The issue is a deployment problem. This is a very
large installation requirement in anyone's book. As a web or
desktop application medium, the size is an insane requirement.
MS is in the "sell more OS licenses"
business. If they force large software on users, hard drives
will fill up and machines will slow down. Users will buy
bigger hardware and MS makes more money from OEM licensing.
Here is the March tech preview for Avalon and Indigo:
http://tinyurl.com/6n49d , the download is 455MB and it also
requires Visual Studio 2005 a 57Mb download and 560Mb of disk
space.
This is an obese release. CTRL+ALT+DELETE
Ted ;)
Somone might want to look at what is inside of the 35mb+ of .net framework - does avalon really need to install all of it to run ? M$ also has compact .net framework which is way smaller...
Avalon itself is aimed largely at making windows richer for desktop apps, which is the primary business MS makes money from.
Very cool discussion, I earlier mentioned about the cross platform issues (need to keep anonymous in Costa Rica ! ), Robert Penner (My Respect To all of his work) did a great post about that especially first paragraph. The Google Maps demo approach in 3 days is a really good point too , and the VB radio developer comparison to FLASH developer it's totally out of scope (personal opinion), even compare to Java Developers VB6 crowd it's still huge. But My point is why you have to go to play with M$ empire while you can develop great stuff with open software and a platform that have great internet penetration like FLASH?, I’m also a MS technologies developer (+8 years) but when you plan to go make your own business and specially in a third world country, licensing becomes a huge ISSUE. In the other hand, C# it's open standard and hopefully soon there's somebody making cool frameworks to integrate Dynamic Interfaces or XML UI, with C# code and so on under MONO FRAMEWORK(http://mono-project.com) so people like me will produce great products without having to spend thousands of dollars on licensing Operating Systems (Windows OS), Development tools (Visual Studio), Databases (Sql Server) and so on. More later…
Ted, those numbers are not for end users. The Avalon installer is 6 megs:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t301167.html
The .NET 2.0 installer is 25 megs:
http://tinyurl.com/4lnnu
The rest is SDK and documentation. I hope you update the numbers in your original post so people aren't misinformed.
Robert,
I just got confirmation from a buddy at MS that the numbers are as follows:
32MB including .NET 2.0
Still sizable but not obese.
Ted ;)
Someone mentioned there were 2 video's on 2 sphere's. Let me correct that.
It was an HD Video source running in the back ground, while 4 sphere's were being animated in rotation, and each sphere had a video running on it.
If you make the HD source the rollercoaster video with some fast music, it's a wild artistic ride...it's just fun.
I'm glad to see the size of the files was corrected.
I'd also like to point out that folks with LongHorn will have Avalon pre-installed. Those with XP will get Avalon automatically through Windows Update...you wake up in the morning, and you have Avalon...no pain...no fuss.
And as far as 50 meg filling up peoples harddrive space...I could not stop laughing...uh how many gig did Doom 3 and Half Life take up on my 120gig hard drive...wait...I'm still counting ;)
lamer! this is a ctp preview goddamnit, it is not meant for win xp. It is for LONGHORN which is not here in it's final form.
This is all just to preview stuff. 50mb man, thats NOTHING.