Comments on: SVG Is The Future Of Application Development

By: James

James — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:40:51 +0000

It’s frustrating to read so many say that svg may be useless in times to come.

What to people say in response to Apple’s improved support for SVG in Safari 4?

I am currently transforming XML slope stability information in order to display images and text to represent the data held in the XML (transformed using XSLT). I have chosen to convert the images to SVG for display within a XHTML page to both maintain scalability/clarity and to add some interactivity.

By: K

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:37:17 +0000

I have been saying this since 2000 – 9 years in the wilderness.

The only important and perceptive question is why Microsoft and Adobe want SVG to remain inadequately supported?

Both Flash and Silverlight are free downloads, so its not as if they are making money there… Somehow, each of these leading contenders for the coming “visual web” feel the need for controlling the developer base. SVG is owned by a non-commercialized hacker base of enthusiasts who use text editors to write amazing web apps. The commercialized droid developers are being sucked into Flash and Silverlight development environments, from which they may never emerge. Pray for earthquakes.

By: Jacobus

Jacobus — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:44:17 +0000

Good article, thanks

SVG offers seamless integration with other XML technologies. It’s well supported by in many ways. It’s not just a web language. It’s a language to describe vector graphics, and allows you to programmatically do so. I’ve been using SVG for 9 years now. The support has gone from strength to strength. Whether IE supports it or not, is a Microsoft problem, it’s affect on SVG adoption is minor compared to the number of SVG applications. A great many desktop applications use SVG under the bonnet. It will never go away.

By: aranwe

aranwe — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:59:07 +0000

SVG in IE (via Silverlight and XSLT): Inline SVG in MSIE SVG to Silverlight Workbench SVG on IE via Silverlight Revisited

By: biznit

biznit — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:30:16 +0000

Your example of CSS not being supported by MS is wrong, they supported CSS early on while Netscape initially pushed a proprietary standard called called Javascript Stylesheets.

I hope you’re right that SVG can succeed as a web technology without Microsoft’s support but it seems that if they are adamant in not supporting it, then unless there’s a fairly massive erosion in IE’s share it doesn’t look good. But I guess anything can happen..

By: tuna

tuna — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:56:17 +0000

Meitar, I’m totally with you on this one. SVG is something that people really have to start looking at. I have the distinct feeling that we are going to see it rolled out into the market place via different angles.

On that note from a design view I would be investigating it with the view that soon my html/css skills won’t be all that valuable in the near future. And that a designer with just html/css skills is not going to be very employable.

By: Meitar

Meitar — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 13:35:30 +0000

@jose (and some others): I see where you're coming from with the arguments that if IE doesn't support SVG, then the technology will not get far. At the same time, I have to say that I don't see that argument holding water. There are examples of technologies that Microsoft has failed to implement and yet which have been instrumental in changing the Web as an application platform in the past. Perhaps CSS is one of the most notable of these. Any time arguments of single-vendor support (or lack thereof) are used as generalist claims of success or failure, I tend to have suspicions. The fact is that the world of tomorrow can not be controlled by a single vendor, no matter how influential—the people (people like you and I) just won't stand for it because openness and transparency and freedom from single-vendor lock-in is one of the things the Internet has catalyzed for us.

By: jose

jose — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:24:26 +0000

SVG will never take off unless IE supports it. I dont see this happening, M$ wants to promote silverlight and adobe only cares for SVG. This is a major problem. SVG with JS and CSS could open up a whole bunch of new web apps and services (trust me I can think of many ways to make sites with SVG and make money). The problem is IE, sure there are libraries people have made using Canvas or VHTML or whathave you with JS, but we really need native SVG support in IE. As far as I know IE8 will not deliver that. IE8 is only being made because Windows 7 is on its way out, just like IE7 was only made cuz they wanted a shiny browser for Vista. IE9 is a long way from here, probably 2013 or later.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:45:22 +0000

Blah. SVG is next to useless. Flash and/or Ajax/widget JS frameworks are the way to go.

By: AndrewCooper

AndrewCooper — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:01:15 +0000

I began reading a book about SVG and SMIL a few months back and was instantly fixated on it. However, when I went home to try some of the techniques out, the browsers didn’t display what I wanted because they didn’t support it.

SVG and SMIL are, in my opinion, fantastic technologies and they should be taken advantage of and used and abused like our bodies are, but unfortunately, the browsers don’t fully support these two technologies.

If all of the mainstream browsers fully supported both SVG and SMIL, sheesh, I’d be more happier than me getting my new PC for Christmas! Hehe.

I love what Sun are doing with they’re Lively Kernel project. Although, I’m very weary on the Web OS, I think I’d prefer it if we didn’t go into the Web OS era, ever.

AndrewCooper