SilverLight vs HTML5 - Quest into the Unkown?

Mike Taulty's Blog

Bits and Bytes from Microsoft UK

Silverlight is not a replacement for HTML. Silverlight never was a replacement for HTML. Silverlight is a rich internet application technology.


Bob Muglia has clarified the situation with a post over on the Silverlight team blog. Quotes;

1. Silverlight is very important and strategic to Microsoft.
2. We’re working hard on the next release of Silverlight, and it will continue to be cross-browser and cross-platform, and run on Windows and Mac.
3. Silverlight is a core application development platform for Windows, and it’s the development platform for Windows Phone.

Steve Ballmer has also commented on the situation.

1. We will also enable browser scenarios that provide additional capabilities, including Silverlight.  Silverlight provides the richest media streaming capabilities on the web, and we will continue to deliver that on both Windows and Mac.
2. Developers can build great applications for it (Windows 7)) using Win32, .NET, Silverlight and HTML5.

That should be the end of the story until there’s an announcement about the next version of Silverlight.



! Future is Bright because Future is Silverlight !!

With the Previews of HTML5 shown by Microsoft with IE9 and IE10 Platform preview and from other vendors, There is a great confusion among people that Microsoft is no longer focusing on Silverlight or they have stop investments on the same. We all agree that HTML5 came up with some jazzy stuff which can do better things with less lines of codes and without plugin.

There are so many things one can pick up for Web Development these days.

• ASP.NET MVC
• PHP
• HTML5 + JS
• Silverlight | RIA Services
• Adobe Flash | Air

JQuery goes well with many of them. If you look at cost wise effective solution, HTML and PHP comes out as a natural choice, If you look at flexibility, Value added features and rich tooling then ASP.NET and Silverlight are good choice. So as far as Web Apps which will get into use via Browser, There is less confusion. For very rich apps either one can go for Silverlight or Flash depending upon the client requirement and business scenarios.

Advantages :

• Silverlight comes here as Advantage due to its Out Of Browser capabilities along with similar availability from Flash/Air but they are clear winner over other languages.
• With Rich Tools like Expression Studio and features like Sketch Flow, Overall experience is way better
• Rich UI, Managed Code, Cross Browser and Cross Platform, Easy Development
• Great Capabilities and features for designing and developing Line of Business applications.
• Support with various new patters and frameworks like MVVM, MEF etc.
• Sandbox Architecture, Secure and lightweight framework

Some Disadvantages : I am not biased here…

• Plug-in based Architecture and dependent on Plug-in
• Cost involved in Tooling
• Not truly Cross Platform (See later section)
• Limitations due to Size of Plug-in and CoreCLR functionalities
• Learning Curve is bit high compare to HTML

There's no question that advanced media apps, 3d, DVR video scenarios shine on Silverlight. Silverlight CAN do some things that HTML5 can't.

If Silverlight has a feature that you need that isn't a part of mainstream browsers, consider a web app that is both HTML/JavaScript and Silverlight. I'm consistently surprised that people feel the need to make Silverlight apps that fill the entire browser but consist of mostly text, images, links, etc. Don't try to make Silverlight act like it's HTML. It's not. Plugins are complimentary to the web, they are not the web. Use them in complementary ways to make the best experiences you can.

Silverlight vs. HTML5

By Code Thaumaturge

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/mix/mix11/HTM14