IE9 is here, So.. what's in for you as a Developer

After so many years of developers wishing for a better browser from Microsoft, one that was more consistent with web standards and would allow them to develop cross-browser websites leveraging the same markup, today marks the day that developers finally have that browser; Internet Explorer 9 Beta. It’s an important day because this release, although just a beta, is the culmination of a lot of effort and most importantly, listening, by the Internet Explorer team.
While the Internet Explorer browser has enjoyed widespread adoption by consumers, it hasn’t always been viewed fondly by the development community. The important work of building cross-browser compliant websites has often been cumbersome, due in part to differing interpretations of browser APIs in previous versions of Internet Explorer. The differences forced developers, myself included, to find workarounds for functionality that, in many cases, had a clearly defined standard behavior.

HTML5, CSS3, DOM

With Internet Explorer 9, there’s been a concerted effort by Microsoft to focus on standards-based functionality that will ease cross-browser development while providing the features needed to build rich and immersive websites. Take, for example, IE9’s support for many of the features of HTML5 and CSS3, the specifications which are defining the future of the web. By including support for features such as Canvas, video, @font-face, CSS3 media queries, SVG and many others, we now have a rich base to provide more compelling experiences to end users. In addition, by ensuring that these features are conformant to the defined specifications, the sites we build should work with any browser that also supports those specifications.
To take it a step further, the IE team has enhanced the performance of many of the new HTML5 features by taking advantage of the GPU. This means that text, graphics and video will be substantially smoother and more responsive allowing websites to perform more like true applications.
And at the DOM level, important changes have been made to be consistent with the defined specifications making it easier to whittle down browser-specific code. For example, support for the W3C DOM Events specification (addEventListener & removeEventListener) in place of the proprietary IE model (attacheEvent & detachEvent) has been one of the most welcomed changes to IE9 as has the introduction of getElementsByClassName, supported for some time in the DOM Level 2 specification and now available in IE9.

JavaScript

Equally important is the performance boost provided by the new Chakra JavaScript engine which basically blows away older versions of Internet Explorer and brings IE9 in line with modern browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and Opera. JavaScript development continues to become more complex and intricate so the importance of these performance enhancements can’t be understated. The Chakra engine interprets, compiles, and executes code in parallel and takes advantage of multiple CPU cores when available and the results are obvious by the greatly improved benchmark scores from the Webkit Sunspider JavaScript Benchmarks.

Chakra JavaScript Engine – WebKit SunSpider Benchmarks

Updated Developer Tools

Substantial work has been done to update the Internet Explorer Developer Tools. The built-in tools, usually found by pressing F12, provided quite a bit of capabilities but were missing key components that were essential to effective testing and debugging of client-side source code. With this update, the tools now include a much anticipated network traffic inspector, Console tab, CSS editing, and an improved JavaScript profiler.
The new Console tab is a welcome addition providing the ability to inspect script easily as well as receive important page-specific error and warning messages.

IE Developer Tools – Console Tab
Of the new features, the one that I’m most excited about is the network traffic inspector, mainly because the bulk of my application development involves Ajax-based requests.

IE Developer Tools – Network Performance of Specific Assets

IE Developer Tools – Network Request Information
I can now do such things as determine load times of specific assets or inspect my request/response headers, cookies and return values without the need for breaking out of the browser to a 3rd party application such as Fiddler or Charles.

Get to Using it Today

A lot of effort has gone into making Internet Explorer 9 Beta a better browser. There’s certainly more work to be done but the fact that we now have a version of IE that provides standards-based functionality and allows us to use the same markup across browsers is pretty hot.
To really appreciate what you can build with IE9, though, you need to just start digging into it. Microsoft has created the following sites to give developers the knowledge and inspiration they need to leverage IE9 to its fullest:

• Beauty of the Web – Explore all of the new features of Microsoft’s latest browser and check out the cool demos built using the advanced features of Internet Explorer 9 Beta
• Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive – This site breaks down the new, advanced features of Internet Explorer 9 Beta and lets you get a visual of what’s possible with each bit of functionality
• Internet Explorer Guide for Developers – The developer documentation you’ll need to learn how about the specifics of Internet Explorer 9 Beta

It feels great to know that we’re on a path to being able to build truly feature-rich websites that will be easier to maintain and provide a more exciting experience to users. While we’ll still need to support older browsers for some time, the fact that all the major browser vendors are heading in the same direction is going to allow us to build some truly amazing things. I can’t wait!

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Silverlight or HTML5, Who wins!!!!

First sorry for being so late with my next post, i was little busy with my course project for NIIT. Secondly this post was supposed to be something about ADO.Net, but since i got my project , which has to be a web application, i myself was fiddling with the decision whether to use HTML5 or Silverlight for much   richer part of my application as now many browsers have started to support HTML5, even IE.

There is already a lot of fuss in Developer community on this topic. Every now and then, someone asks me, "Which technology will win: HTML5 or Silverlight?", or "What is Silverlight's strategy to compete with HTML5?".
I always have to take a deep breath before responding, because these questions presuppose something that doesn't make any sense to me. It's like asking a tool store owner, "Which will win, hammers or screwdrivers?", or "How will you prevent hammers from making screwdrivers obsolete?"

Black-and-white Thinking

Some important folks in the industry have argued that HTML5 is a Silverlight-killer, or that Silverlight exists to prevent HTML from advancing. These are dramatic claims that only heighten conflict in an industry afflicted by fictionalized Zarathustrian "black versus white" stories.

The Right Tool for the Job

Microsoft ships the world's most popular HTML client. Despite the HTML5 specification being a work in progress, we implemented several HTML5 features in our most recent browser. Microsoft has co-chaired the HTML5 working group in W3C since its inception, and we remain active participants. And our browser will continue to be the dominant HTML standards implementation for the foreseeable future.
Likewise, we continue to invest heavily in Silverlight development and deployment. If Silverlight and HTML are mortally opposed, as the story goes, we must be crazy to invest so heavily in both, right? Wrong.
The truth is, Microsoft is a developer company, and there is no one-size-fits-all, perfect tool for every development job. Can anyone seriously criticize us for investing in C#, JavaScript, and Ruby and Python (among other languages)? No! Our customers should be able to use the right tool for the job at hand.
As with development languages, there is no single development platform for every job. HTML5 will be fantastic for some scenarios, while Silverlight will be great for others. Besides Internet Explorer and Silverlight, we ship a bunch of other platforms, including XNA and DirectX for game developers, WPF and .NET, Win32, and others. We have the depth and breadth to be best in class, no matter what platform developers want to use.

Opportunism vs. Reality

So, why do certain people propagate this myth? Do they really want a monoculture world where there is only one platform for every job? Or are they truly arguing from an idealistic or religious viewpoint, as some of their arguments would suggest?
In my opinion, it's a lot simpler than all of that: those who argue that HTML5 will supplant everything else tend to be companies who have nothing else. If you only sell hammers, you might as well try to convince people that there are no such things as screws. And you can drive awareness for your newly-incorporated hammer store by telling tales of intrigue and conflict between hammers and screwdrivers. But the fact that these arguments are often couched in conspiracy theories or ideology, suggests that they are primarily opportunistic marketing ploys, and not motivated by pragmatic technical reality.

What do you think? Leave a comment below, or hit me up on twitter.

Originally Taken from here.

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