The above-water part.

My formative years coincided with Microsoftâ€s Evil Empire phase — Slashdot had us convinced that the company was bent on total world domination and the enslavement of humanity. More recently, working as a web developer, my main interaction with Microsoft has been in making web sites compatible with old versions of Internet Explorer, a 2x multiplier on time estimates (and a 10x multiplier on frustration levels).

At MIX, Microsoft was in full atonement mode, acknowledging their mistakes of the past and assuring us that theyâ€d changed. The conferenceâ€s first keynote was almost exclusively about IE and person after person spoke about Microsoftâ€s new commitment to openness and adhering to web standards. Just look at the key messages from the keynote, captured in mural form by Image Think:

• “Native is better”
• “Importance of HTML 5 keeps growing”
• “Developers deserve the best web”
• “Browsers that optimize for developers are better”
• “Built from the ground up”

And it wasnâ€t just talk — the recently-launched IE9 is a truly modern browser with a fast Javascript engine and much better CSS3 and HTML5 support.

Fellow-attendee, Morten Rand-Hendriksen agrees:

For anyone not working within or closely associated with the Microsoft universe the seemingly sudden shift to a focus on web standards, open source and interoperability may seem as a sudden and irratic shift. But it has actually been going on for a long time. Itâ€s just that with the release of IE9 just a few weeks ago Microsoft suddenly went from being the reason why web standards and cutting edge web technologies couldnâ€t be implemented to a company leading the way and in many respects leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

The first keynote set the tone but the rest of the conference was also full of sessions explaining IEâ€s future and how itâ€s aligned to web standards. In the Connect Lounge, the IE team set up laptops to view Beaty of the Web, a collection of cutting-edge sites that work just as well in other modern browsers. “Internet Explorer 9 was designed to let the potential of the web shine through,” says the site.

However… Silverlight

With all Microsoftâ€s talk of standards and openness recently, many thought this signalled the death of Silverlight, a proprietary browser plugin technology that seems to be mostly about replacing the equally-hated Flash. At MIX, we learned that Silverlight is quite definitely not dead — a new version was announced on the conferenceâ€s second day and Microsoft gave it unqualified support.

If the future of the web is about web standards, openness, and specifically, things like HTML 5 support, where does Silverlight fit in? Why did the Day 2 keynote feature a demo of a Silverlight-based site that could have almost certainly been developed without any proprietary plugin requirements?

(As an example of why Silverlight / browser plugins are easy to hate, hereâ€s what happened the first time I went on the Silverlight-dependent site that archives the MIX videos: 1) Iâ€m told I have to restart Firefox into 32-bit mode. 2) I did this and then got notified that I had to upgrade Silverlight. 3) I do this and reload the page — Firefox crashes. 4) About 10 minutes later, I was finally able to watch the video.)

Officially, prior to the conference, Microsoft gave a carefully-worded clarification of their position: in a nutshell, there are “different tools for different jobs.”

The Registerâ€s Gavin Clarke has a theory:

It must keep those who answered their call and committed to Silverlight, while gently talking them down from the Silverlight heights and introducing them to HTML5. Microsoft cannot afford to see Silverlighters bolt en masse to HTML5 – or even return to Flash – so it must continue to explain ways in which Silverlight is better than HTML5 and why the player remains strategically important to the company.

But I also heard some other explanations:

• The division reflects a vicious internal political battle (IE under the Windows division vs. Silverlight under the Developer Tools division)
• Yes, Silverlight does similar things as HTML 5 but itâ€s a way of serving a different culture: the generation of application developers who are more comfortable doing web development with Silverlight/.NET than in than HTML/CSS/JS. In other words, the split is more about which developers to serve, rather than which users to serve.
• Silverlightâ€s actual importance is going to be for things like Windows Phone development.

The fact that Silverlight, a closed and proprietary technology, got almost as attention as the IE talk of open standards left a lot of us attendees confused and I donâ€t feel much was done to address this.

But regardless, as a web developer, Iâ€m excited that thereâ€s a very good chance that the process of spending countless hours making a site compatible with IE may become a thing of the past.

Some links to click on:

• Test Drive IE10
• Beautyoftheweb.com: Microsoftâ€s showcase of HTML 5 sites.
• SVG Girl: One of the more impressive demos that the IE team showed off at the MIX keynote

With MIXâ€s focus on the web, who better to invite than Douglas Crockford, the brains behind JSON, author of Javascript: The Good Parts (and someone we invited to speak at CUSEC 2010))

He started off: “Iâ€m Doug Crockford. Iâ€m sorry to inform you that for the next hour, Iâ€ll be talking about JavaScript.”

In particular, he spoke about the next version of Javascript. ECMAScript 3 is the basis for the JavaScript we use now; ECMAScript 4 fell through; version 5 is what everyone is finalizing right now.

The goals of ES5?

1. Donâ€t break the web
2. Improve the language for the users of the language
3. Third party security
4. protect stupid people from themselves (canâ€t do that “because thatâ€s just too hard”)
5. No new syntax.

Crockford is particularly disappointed on how little effort the W3C has put towards fixing HTMLâ€s security model, especially before embarking on HTML5. He went as far as calling it “criminally irresponsible.”

A video of the talk is available here.

Crockford was on stage again on the second day of the conference, this time with a better self-introduction: “Iâ€m Doug Crockford and I discovered that javascript has good parts.”

Left to right: Tomasz Janczuk, Douglas Crockford, Allen Wirfs-Brock, Luke Hoban

Also on the panel:

• Tomasz Janczuk
• Allen Wirfs-Brock (Mozilla)
• Luke Hoban (Microsoft)

The panelists†thoughts on the future of JavaScript:

• TJ: biggest fear is bifurcating the language. Javascript currently has a big advantage in the size of its community programming against a single language.
• DC: wants to see JavaScript get more simple. Worried about security of language and simple is easier to think about.
• AWB: JS is the next ubiquitous language.
• LH: every browser now has a fast and new JavaScript engine and thereâ€s a lot of support for HTML 5.

Some links on ECMAScript 5

• ECMAScript 5 compatibility table
• ECMAScript 5 Objects and Properties

Fellowship of the rings

“Great design is a fellowship of roles,” says Rick Barraza in a talk called “What Brains, Football and Hobbits teach us about Designer & Developer.”

Designers and developers both want to ship a great product; design is too important to be left only to the designers. Design is both a noun and a verb but we usually talk about design as the noun.

Instead, we should think of great design as a “fellowship of roles”:

• The very elegant Orland Bloom graphic designers
• The hobbit-y new UX role
• The royal legacy that is the developers. Theyâ€re kings — a project stands or falls on the technical lead
• The server guys (who are kept in the back)

(The amount of facial hair increases from right brain to left brain.)

Most importantly, Barraza says, we need a Gandalf-like character to act as Experience Architect, working to integrating everything.

Itâ€s available to watch on the Channel 9 site (third talk in the video).

And some photos from others:

Designer and Developer: A Case for the Hybrid (Jeff Croft)

Jeff Croft of Lendle fame.

Should designers code? Or is is okay for one to specialize in visual design and expect others to build their vision? As we get farther and farther away from the days of the “webmaster,” and become an industry of specialists, are we losing some of the beauty, efficiency, and innovation that can be found at the point where design and development intersect? Jeff Croft, hybrid designer and developer, makes the case that the best web products will always be created by designers who understand the building blocks of the web: the code.

• Watch the video

Robby Ingebretsen: “Farming for Ideas: How to Be The Most Creative You”.

Data in an HTML5 World (Asad Khan, Marcelo Lopez Ruiz)

• Watch the video

What Exactly Are We Doing on the Web? (DL Byron)

Nearly 20 years into this industry — one that we mostly just made up as we went along — itâ€s time to ask, what exactly is our craft? What do we do and how well do we do it? Byron will ask questions about a professional ethos, values, and ongoing growth from the early days to now and the future. Heâ€ll also share inspiration, throw out some challenges, and engage in a conversation about our careers on the Web.

• Watch the video

Next up

A post about IE at MIX.

First impression: it’s a well-organized conference. I spent university helping organize student conferences and our events were slightly more haphazard.

At MIX, the lineups moved quickly (logistics outsourced to Eventforce, the wifi worked (except right after announcements of new betas), and the keynotes were well-lit. Like Oreilly’s OSCON last year, it was interesting to observe how a big-budget conference operates.

A thank you to mobile developers

Apple’s WWDC featured a wall of icons showing the 50,00 apps that had been developed for the App Store. Here’s Microsoft’s low-fi version for Windows Marketplace:

Channel 9 Live

Some broadcasts are archived here.

Sketching the keynotes

During the two morning keynotes, the messages were transformed into giant sketches by Nora Herting and Heather Willems of Image Think.

The results:

Remote control cars!

Kyosho set up a track. There were a few people who spent most of the conference with a controller in hand.

And great swag

In addition to a grid IE-branded Moleskine, everyone got to go home with an Xbox Kinect (xbox not included). Hopefully I’ll get some time to hack on the new SDK.

Coming up

Posts about session highlights + IE’s future.

I was at MIX last week. Once I get over a pesky cold, I’ll post details. In the meantime, the view from the floor.

In Las Vegas for MIX.

Lobby of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion, designed by Moshe Safdie (who is adding another piece of architecture to Toronto soon.)

And one of the rooms:

Democamp 28 at Ryerson’s George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre.

The lineup:

• Keynote Speaker: Mark Ruddock
• Kipu
• Rocketr
• Attachments.me
• Green Owl Mobile
• TrendSpottr
• TubeMote

(Why is the road free of cars? The scene of Monday’s fire at Yonge and Gould is still under investigation.)

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of fog. The last time I posted photos, they were mostly taken in the Annex.

Almost exactly a year later, the fog rolled in again. This time, I was down by the lake.

TD Centre in the fog

I headed north into the financial district, deserted on this Friday night.

Moss Park

And eastward! The fog engulfed Moss Park.

And the best part: unlike last year, the police didn’t question whether I was a peeping tom.

Democamp 27 — hosted in the Scotiabank Theatre.

The largest attendance yet. Kicked off with a talk by Fred Wilson and then five demos.

The view from the 14th floor of the Sheraton Centre.

David Miller

The Queen inspected the troops:

Goodbye, troops: