To Run Or Not To Run:

Microsoft used to be accused of angling for world domination, and not the world of operating systems or office software, the whole world, as in Earth. Before they can do that, though, they need to take over the Internet and tap into the power of the alien abductee population. To do that, they need to get everyone off Flash (take that, John Warnock!) and position their own Silverlight as the media processor of The Future Starting Now.

Microsoft went beyond even the fine IronRuby project with Asynchronous Ruby and XML (ARAX), a Ruby-ized variant of the widespread AJAX web development tools. Since version 2 (and it’s into #3 now) Silverlight processes and runs Ruby code that is right within a web page, the way browsers handle JavaScript. This means Ruby developers can write in Ruby instead of dishing out the equivalent JavaScript like they’re doing now.

Oohs vs. boos
About mid-2008, eWeek gathered some top-line tech talkers for a discussion of the relative merits of ARAX and IronRuby, and a rough consensus formed around the notion that Ruby developers weren’t happy using multiple languages and handling context shifts. Some said that adding JavaScript code for custom functionality put them in another world, making them wish they could use what they’d already written in Ruby. Instead of porting it, now they could just run it in the browser.

There was some talk about Rails programmers simply wanting to do some Ruby on the client. JavaScript is no longer considered the ugly stepchild it once was, but a not insubstantial group of folks seemed to think it was quirky in certain ways. JavaScript partisans retorted that Ruby had its own thrills and spills, but the Ruby folks countered that it had many more 'oohs and ahs' than JavaScript did.

Go-go or gaga?
Of course, the resolution of the whole Ruby and Python client-side squabble depends on the fate of Silverlight, and it remains to be seen, over a year later, whether Silverlight will really take off. Its dynamic language support is more provocative than innovative, but its long-term value to developers is unknown. Microsoft had plenty of issues over the last year with .Net 3., anyway and .Net 3.5's runtime is a 190MB download, close to an OS all by itself.

Back in that summer 2008 eWeek article, another tech pundit of some standing said it was great to see Microsoft making progress in this area. He noted that JRuby provided people with folders full of Java infrastructure and programs an easy route into Ruby, and that IronRuby did the same thing for people still sitting on a Microsoft stack. Nonetheless, he did not expect a large number of Ruby programmers with no current Microsoft connection to go gaga over the Silverlight news.

What to do?
It’s safe to stay skeptical. Perhaps the best advice was from a longtime programmer, who said everyone should just cross our fingers and hope it doesn't become another proprietary rehash [like] Jscript. He also hoped that Silverlight would not be abandoned or dumbed down on non-MS platforms [the way that] Internet Explorer, Media Player, Messenger and Office were.

The development process (and the PR campaign) for Silverlight, the MS media monger, is quite interesting, but there is no way the knee-jerk anti-MS crowd would ever touch it. More than one eWeek forum participant called the whole thing classic Microsoft. They say the company, rather than fixing IE, is purposely leaving it broken and creating new ways for programmers to make web apps their way, with Silverlight/ARAX. Why would they do that?

Once everyone is on it, said the pundit who got in the last word, they will attempt to lock out the other browsers.He said he’s seen that story play out 10 times already and doesn’t feel like paying the admission charge again.

Who knows what will happen? No one, of course. There are only those few things that are certain in life, like death and taxes. People try to make additions to that short list all the time, but few end up sticking. There is one more sure thing, though: No matter what happens with Silverlight, Ruby, Python and all that, Microsoft is still pursuing world domination and they’re really close. Really!