Microsoft Silverlight 4 vs. Adobe Flash 10.1 379
superapecommando writes "The richest RIA platforms today (and for the foreseeable future) come from clashing titans Adobe and Microsoft, whose Flash and Silverlight platforms both combine excellent tools for developers and designers, broad client support, strong support for server-side technologies, digital rights management capabilities, and the ability to satisfy use cases as varied as enterprise dashboards, live video streaming, and online games. And each has spawned new updates, to Flash 10.1/AIR 2 and Silverlight 4 respectively, which put them on a near-level playing field. Which one should you choose?"
Re:To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Choices (Score:3, Informative)
Choose the one that works on all mobile devices including iPads and iPhones.
Also including Windows Mobile devices, which run IE?
And when did Safari for iOS gain webcam support for web applications? Without it, you can't make something like Chatroulette.
Re:To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, never having had a need for using Flash, I'm kinda curious what that different purpose is?
So far the only features it seems I would need flash for would be microphone and camera support, and I haven't had a need for those.
Canvas and video tags integrate better with the page HTML, CSS and JS. Why wouldn't you use them if you can?
Re:None of them, complemented with Flash (Score:1, Informative)
Wrong. Silverlight runs on XP, for those still using it. And it will run on a Mac (Intel chips, but still). When people complain about poor support for LINUX, they're talking about, what, less than 1% of the market? And Moonlight will (hopefully, if only to cease the whining) catch up eventually.
Silverlight is working great for us and our users, than you very much. Podcasts, embedded video, and at least one graphic-intensive RIA, and unlike Flash there are no security exploits/risks, and no dragging down CPU cycles either. I am SO glad we went with Silverlight. Yes, the learning curve is a little steeper than Flash, but well worth the extra effort. And at a growing support base of over 60% browser penetration, Silverlight is well on its way to catching up with Flash and Java in that regard.
Re:2022? What kind of FUD BS is that? (Score:5, Informative)
Between HTML 4 being published and HTML 5's beginnings, the W3C changed their process. What used to be called a Recommendation (the level HTML 4 reached) is now called Candidate Recommendation. In order for a specification to reach Recommendation status now, it has to have two interoperable implementations. That means waiting for browsers to fully implement it in a reasonably bug-free way. HTML 4 didn't have that final barrier to overcome before it was published as a final recommendation, but HTML 5 does. That's why the final publication date is so far off. HTML 5 is expected to reach Candidate Recommendation status - the level of maturity that was required of HTML 4 before it was considered "finished" - in 2012. So if you are comparing HTML 5's maturity to HTML 4's, then 2012 is the date you should be using for HTML 5, not 2022.
Re:To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:3, Informative)
Agreed. Seems like basically anything using features above Silverlight 2 doesn't work in Moonlight, e.g. Netflix or kivabank.org
Netflix is a (somewhat) special problem. Microsoft won't license the Silverlight DRM library to Novell for implementation in Moonlight. Novell is still trying to convince them, but no luck yet.
Re:Whose copyright (Score:3, Informative)
All you need is any text editor of your choice and a command line, and you can build Flash
In fact, Flash Builder (the professional Flex IDE built on top of Eclipse) is free for unemployed developers and students [adobe.com].
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:0, Informative)
Your alarm is going off. Derp. [microsoft.com]
Re:Which one should you choose? (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, 19 of the top 20 [openscreenproject.org] handset manufacturers have signed up to work with Adobe to bring native versions of Flash to their devices.
Translation: 19 out of 20 manufacturers that have Android 2.2+ handsets on the market or on their roadmap will not actively block it from the phone, when Adobe finally releases a Flash player that works on anything besides a Nexus One, an HTC Desire or a Droid 2.
Flash 10.1 is already out for Android 2.2, and is coming out on every single platform (Windows Mobile, Symbian, Meego (moblin + maemo), Blackberry, etc) except Apple's iOS
Translation: there's a beta out that works for 3 handsets, and Adobe still has plans to bring Flash player to every single piece of hardware on earth, just like they had 5 years ago. There is no ETA for Flash player on anything besides Android, and it has already been confirmed that neither WM, S^3 or Meego will have Flash Player when they launch.
It actually already runs pretty well on the iPhone too ...
Translation: there's a stop-gap unsupported version that somewhat runs on iPhone OS but doesn't support all features, and, most importantly, doesn't even do video. What you get is exactly what Apple wants to block Flash for: your battery runs down within 30 minutes, your phone gets really hot, and most Flash content is almost impossible to interact with since it was written for mouse+kb input.
... except that Steve Jobs banhammered Flash CS5 iPhone apps on the eve of Adobe's Creative Suite 5 launch
Translation: except that Steve Jobs banhammered all middleware solutions for writing iPhone applications, since they would be detrimental to the user experience, and the way Apple wants to support and update their OS and application ecosystem.
Instead of the possibility of a write once-run everywhere solution that's good enough with Flash, you'll now have to suck up significant resources just to build an iOS port
Translation: instead of trying to provide a free lunch for hordes of cheap-ass developers who want to 'write crap once, deploy everywhere' they *gasp* might have to learn something different, that's much more powerful, flexible and efficient. Customers everywhere don't give a shit, they already have a million native games and applications in the App Store already, which -on average- have significantly higher quality then any other mobile app store or any Flash content on full-blown PC's. So apparantly lack of Flash is not stopping anyone from creating good stuff on iOS.
you'll now have to suck up significant resources just to build an iOS port
Translation: writing great applications takes time and resources, providing developers with options to deploy generic stuff that is not specifically written to the hardware & software primarily benefits developers, not end-users.
It's good for protecting and providing business for native iPhone coders, but still, it's a headache and a resource-sink
Translation: if you don't have the time or resources to write great software for multiple platforms, pick one that works best for you and deploy to that.
Re:Absolutely (Score:4, Informative)
But then flash does run on Linux, albiet poorly compared to Windows, and silverlight does not. I have to keep a windows box around just for Netflix. And I've already tried moonlight and Netflix refuses to touch it.
Re:Silverlight at 60? (Score:3, Informative)
You already posted this further up as AC and I'm tired of your bullshit stats..
I don't think they are his stats.
Wow what a good sample of the web. 132 sites..
Um, considering they are measuring the browser features coming TO the website and not the website itself, it probably isn't a bad sample at all. But keeping grinding away on that axe. It might take you places.
Re:None of them, complemented with Flash (Score:1, Informative)
That's not true. Silverlight runs great on Mac and XP. (Version 3 runs pretty well on Linux in Firefox, version 4 is still under development on that platform). It runs under all major browsers: Firefox, Chrome, IE 6, 7, 8, 9, Safari, Opera, etc.
Re:Which one should you choose? (Score:3, Informative)
it has already been confirmed that neither WM, S^3 or Meego will have Flash Player when they launch.
The Nokia N8 is an Symbian^3 device and has Flash Lite 4.0 pre-installed (stripped down version of Flash 10.x, AFAIK. It already runs AS3 and the AVM2 which is the important thing). The N900 is a Maemo Linux (= Meego) device and runs Flash Player 10.1 no problem. There shouldn't be any problems with Meego devices running Flash. Flash Player 10.1 will skip Windows Mobile 6.5, and will be launched for WinMo7 instead. Earlier Windows Mobile devices have had Flash Lite.
A few things about Silverlight 4 (Score:2, Informative)
A few things you might want to know about Silverlight 4 before assuming the new shiney toy is the better one:
- Drop down boxes have no keyboard support (press U in a country list does nothing, you have to do it manually)
- Right click menus don't exist unless you make the control windowless
- You get fewer shortcut keys than Javascript
- You won't have Silverlight 4 installed on a fresh Windows 7 machine
- The scroll container control (ScrollViewer) has no inbuilt support for tabbing between controls or mousewheel support
- Unlike CSS there is no styling inheritence besides per-control styling, it's equivalent of having #ids for everything
- Visual Studio 2010 support is extremely crash-prone
- The MSDN documentation is poor to say the least
- It only works on one browser on the Mac
On the plus side
- It doesn't crash your Mac
- The parts they haven't butchered from WPF give you some very nice layout and animation features
- You get a strongly typed language
- You get a mostly awesome IDE to use it. And also Blend.
- It's not Adobe