The Eric Wroolie Blog

Microsoft this week announced the name for their WPF/E platform which should go live sometime in the coming months (I hope). WPF/E is a browser plugin which will allow for more dynamic XAML content to be displayed in a browser of any make. It’s often referred to as Microsoft’s “Flash Killer”.

The new name for the technology is Silverlight. The site is here.

I played around with this stuff last December. It’s all very cool. The problem at the moment is a lack of developer tools. Even using Microsoft Expressions or the Xaml designer in VS2005 won’t be much help, since the XAML that WPF/E allows is only a subset of all the tags. Still, it will allow web designers who already type markup to have much more dynamic content without the expensive Flash tools. You can code XAML in notepad or XAMLPad, and I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opensource designers to come out of this.

I know it’s Microsoft and they already have everything?but it would be nice to see this catch on. Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash was a difficult tool to use and prohibitively expensive. Even though .swf was a standard other tools could use, there was never a decent substitute to Flash. Now, the bar may be raised for all web apps?despite the stupid new name.

I read this article last week called “How Not To Lead Geeks” and found it very funny and very true. It’s worth a quick read here, but the overall gist is that geeks are smarter than you are, so don’t try to treat them otherwise.

The one item on the list that struck me more than the others was number 4?”Use Management-Speak”.

In the last contract I held, I worked for someone who insisted on using management terms with me. I’ve read the books. I know the buzzwords. I’m not impressed. He insisted on using the word “leverage” at every opportunity. He was also partial to synergy. I don’t mind these words and you are not an idiot just for using them?they’re good words when used with proper flow. But when you make it a point of using them at every opportunity because it makes you sound smart, it really bothers me.

I get a lot of emails from companies for Overpass and a surprising amount of the emails use the word “synergise”?”perhaps our companies can find synergy”. I suppose I shouldn’t let it bother me as much as it does.

I knew a guy in the Army who also insisted on talking like a cop when he spoke to a group of people: “I then proceeded to enter the building where I witnessed two people in the process of conversing. . . ” But he spoke normally when talking with people one on one. Although he would never admit it, I think he thought he sounded smarter when he used all those unnecessary words to convey a simple meaning. That’s what the management guys do?they try to impress you (or, perhaps, gain control of your bi-lateral conversation) by using the management words.

By the way, if you can use the words “leverage”, “synergise”, and “paradigm” in the same sentence, you get to enter the Management Hall of Fame.