31 replies to this topic 2 votes

[Shayla]

Quote

At Microsoft’s Mix ‘10 conference in March, where Microsoft took the wraps off its HTML 5 vision for Internet Explorer 9, there were a lot of questions about the future for Silverlight.

Six months later — and one new version of Silverlight (version 4, released in April) later, those questions still persist. Should Web developers target Internet Explorer 9 or Silverlight when creating new Web and mobile applications?

Microsoft hasn’t issued any kind of white paper or definitive guidance. The official IE executive positioning has been HTML 5 is the future of the Web — but Silverlight’s not dead (yet). This week, however, the Silverlight team finally stepped up to the plate to defend the future of that platform.

Brad Becker, Director of Product Management, Developer Platforms, took the bull by the horns with a post entitled “The Future of Silverlight” on the Silverlight Team Blog. Becker repeated the party line that HTML 5 is nowhere near done and is a standard in flux. But he also made the case that Silverlight is the right solution for developers looking to create premium media content, as well as content/apps that can run on multiple platforms.

There is still confusion/overlap around business/enterprise apps and consumer apps. Should a Microsoft-centric developer target IE or Silverlight in those cases? Becker’s answer seems to be that it’s up to programmers and they should go with the platform to which they’re most comfortable coding.

I’m hoping Microsoft is prepping some kind of more definitive guidance for developers as to when to target Silverlight vs. when to target IE/HTML 5. (Given how often I’m asked by developers what Microsoft’s stance is here, I bet a white paper or cheat sheet would be welcome.) Maybe once the Softies are ready to talk about Silverlight 5 Microsoft will have figured out its own positioning and politics…

Source : ZDNet

[Mattytommo]

I often have discussions about this at work, as we are looking for interactive content for our company's web app, but are unsure whether to jump on the HTML5 or SilverLight bandwagons. There seems to be no definitive response from either, but Microsoft arguing that "it's not finished yet" as their best defence proves that it's going to prompt a decline in the need to use Flash/Silverlight for interactive content.

One thing I'm not sure of however, is which performs faster. Some multmedia content written entirely in Javascript, is that faster than SilverLight or vice versa?

[hdood]

If you can't do the interactive stuff you want with current standards (not HTML5), then go with Flash. HTML5 is not an option because the standard is not finished yet, and the browser's have not fully implemented it either. In fact, IE7 and IE8 do not support it at all. By going with HTML5, you would be alienating an extremely large percentage of the market. Silverlight is not quite as bad a choice, but it's still a poor choice because it's not as widely deployed as Flash.

[xpclient]

Of course, it definitely has. People seem to have the wrong impression that HTML5 will do everything (Silverlight and Flash do). Silverlight is ****ing amazingly rich and MS can have their own proprietary innovations put there as not everything can be done the HTML5 way.

[~Johnny]

There's also the nice fact that you can be pretty confident that what ever you write for Silverlight will work exactly the same in every browser - not something you can say about HTML 5. Plus, Silverlight does offer a lot more, it's not a mere flash clone that people play it down to be =/

[hdood]

~Johnny, on 05 September 2010 - 08:49, said:

Plus, Silverlight does offer a lot more, it's not a mere flash clone that people play it down to be =/

Virtually everything I've seen Silverlight used for on the web could have been done in Flash as well though. The only reason to use Silverlight in most cases is because you are a Microsoft shop and don't know how to use anything else. It's dumb to choose Silverlight when Flash will let you reach a wider audience, and in my opinion any contractor who suggests it should be fired and blacklisted.

[Kirkburn]

hdood, on 05 September 2010 - 09:45, said:

Virtually everything I've seen Silverlight used for on the web could have been done in Flash as well though.

That's not the same thing. Just because implementations you've seen could be done in Flash doesn't mean all implementations can be, or that Silverlight wasn't a better choice in that situation.

hdood, on 05 September 2010 - 09:45, said:

The only reason to use Silverlight in most cases is because you are a Microsoft shop and don't know how to use anything else. It's dumb to choose Silverlight when Flash will let you reach a wider audience, and in my opinion any contractor who suggests it should be fired and blacklisted.

If Silverlight lets you do something better, then sure you should choose it. You're putting way too much emphasis on marketshare over anything else.

PS. Pretty sure MS engineers know how to use Flash.

[hdood]

Kirkburn, on 05 September 2010 - 12:31, said:

That's not the same thing. Just because implementations you've seen could be done in Flash doesn't mean all implementations can be, or that Silverlight wasn't a better choice in that situation.

I said that virtually everything I've seen Silverlight used for on the web could also have been done with Flash. If it could also have been done with Flash, then Silverlight can't be a better choice. It's very simple. Similarly, if it can be done in all relevant browsers without using Flash, then Flash is not the best choice.

Kirkburn, on 05 September 2010 - 12:31, said:

If Silverlight lets you do something better, then sure you should choose it. You're putting way too much emphasis on marketshare over anything else.

It's the only thing that matters.

Kirkburn, on 05 September 2010 - 12:31, said:

PS. Pretty sure MS engineers know how to use Flash.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Flash isn't a better choice because Adobe uses it on its websites, it's a better choice because it will let you reach a wider audience.

[Quigley Guy]

Silverlight is currently installed on over 60% of all machines... thats impressive.
http://riastats.com

[jakem1]

Quigley Guy, on 05 September 2010 - 12:42, said:

Silverlight is currently installed on over 60% of all machines... thats impressive.
http://riastats.com

Be careful. Those sorts of stats might make hdood question is irrational hatred of MS

[hdood]

Quigley Guy, on 05 September 2010 - 12:42, said:

Silverlight is currently installed on over 60% of all machines... thats impressive.
http://riastats.com

Impressive in context maybe (or maybe not, considering Microsoft's sneaky distribution), but 8.6% for v3 and 53% for v4 on the sites polled is not impressive when compared to 93% for Flash 10 and 2.8% for Flash 9. It should be obvious which platform is the better choice.

[jakem1]

No, it appears he still has that irrational hatred of MS.

[hdood]

jakem1, on 05 September 2010 - 12:56, said:

No, it appears he still has that irrational hatred of MS.

How on earth is it "irrational hatred" to point out that it is better to choose the solution that can reach over 90% of the market over the one that reaches 60%?

[andrew_f]

For me, part of the 'open web' is the ability for anyone to try and expand on standards with their own thing. Flash and Silverlight (although I'm not a huge fan of either) are welcome in my book, because it'll keep the web moving forward.

[jakem1]

hdood, on 05 September 2010 - 12:57, said:

How on earth is it "irrational hatred" to point out that it is better to choose the solution that can reach over 90% of the market over the one that reaches 60%?

Your hatred is irrational because you just turn up in every Microsoft related thread and bash them for no reason.

Your 90% marketshare argument is absolutely pointless in this case. 60% vs 90% is irrelevant, especially considering that, like Flash, Silverlight is free and widely available. There are no limitations preventing its wider acceptance and installation is just as quick and easy as Flash installation. Given these facts, it makes little sense for developers with .NET experience (and there are exponentially more .of them out there than there are Flash developers) to learn Flash from scratch when they would find Silverlight a lot easier to learn. I mean, are you seriously suggesting that you'd rather take the time to learn a whole new development language and familiarise yourself with a whole new set of tools rather than just add a link telling your users to download a runtime package?

I could understand if you were arguing that Silverlight doesn't support key features that Flash does but your marketshare argument is particularly weak.