First Look At Microsoft Silverlight 3 228
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Martin Heller finds Silverlight 3 gaining ground on Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR in all the areas where Silverlight 2 had lagged. No longer do developers need to build desktop WPF apps based loosely on corresponding Silverlight RIAs, as Silverlight 3 adds the ability to install Silverlight apps on the desktop, update them in place, detect Net connectivity state changes, and store data locally and securely. Moreover, solid Expression Blend 3 and Visual Studio 2010 betas provide developers with much improved tools to create Silverlight RIAs. '"I do not expect many Adobe shops to give up their Flash, Flex, and AIR for Silverlight 3. I do expect many Microsoft shops to do more RIAs with Silverlight now that it's more capable and to create lightweight browser/desktop Silverlight 3 applications where they might have fashioned heavier-weight Windows Forms or WPF client applications," Heller says.'"
Balkanization of the web (Score:5, Insightful)
What would the web be without JPEG, GIF and PNG? Can you imagine what a hot mess it would be if you had to install proprietary binary plug-ins to view images on web pages? And if some of the plug-ins weren't available on your platform?
Then go in the other direction and imagine what the web could have been with a universal video format and vector animation format. That's the crazy amount of damage Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Real and the MPEG4 LA have collectively wreaked on the web at large.
So please, please avoid Silverlight (or Flash, for that matter). It aims to balkanize the web into mutually-incompatible, vendor-dominated fiefdoms in which the overwhelming incentive is to tax users for their access to data.
Ad paid by Microsoft? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Bottom Line: Microsoft Silverlight 3 is catching up to the capabilities of Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR in all the areas where Silverlight was behind."
Re:I'll pass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll pass. (Score:5, Insightful)
Moonlight supports Silverlight 1. Support for Silverlight 2 is in "preview".
Thus far the Moonlight project is "compatible" enough to tell you your version of Silverlight is out of date, and please upgrade.
That's not even close to what I'd call multi-OS or useful. Hell, I barely put up with flash (no-script saves the day most of the time). If sites are forcing Silverlight down my throat, I'll just not use them.
Re:I'll pass. (Score:5, Insightful)
I asked Becker about Microsoftâ(TM)s plans to support Silverlight 3 on Linux clients. He said if and when that support happens, it will most likely come from Novell, which created the Silverlight port to Linux, known as Moonlight.
So no, it's not really multi-OS. Silverlight will never come to Linux. It will always be Moonlight which will always be behind Silverlight and will always run the risk of MS undermining it.
Re:Moonlight? (Score:5, Insightful)
It has been around for a while and I'm sure it'll eventually get to 3.0 compatibility rather quickly
And I'm sure it'll remain consistently at least one version behind the Windows one, and still missing features, just as Microsoft would prefer. Moonlight has not even reached parity with Silverlight 2.0 as a final release, let alone 3.0.
Interesting that they focus on Flash/Flex as the competitor, when really the more important rival for developers' attentions is HTML 5, and the various APIs built on top of the open web (Google Gears etc).
If you're developing a web app, why develop using tech which will only ever work properly on Windows? I guess for a shop which thinks they'll never stop using Microsoft software for everything, it might seem like a good idea.
Advertisement (Score:1, Insightful)
This reads and smells, no make that stinks, like a microsoft advert. Since the user "snydeg" links to InfoWorld I think that conclusion is at least worth considering.
Re:I'll pass. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Moonlight? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll pass. (Score:1, Insightful)
MS knows how to make developers lives easier - this is why DX is far, far more used these days than OpenGL.
The same will happen with Silverlight. It's expected that within 3 years, nearly 25% of what uses Flash today will be moving to Silverlight, and within 5 years, 50%.
Many shops are looking very closely at Silverlight as the Next Big Thing on the web. It isn't quite there yet, but it will be, so they want to get early experience now.
Re:UltraLearn (Score:1, Insightful)
And they are? Seriously, never hear of 'em.
Re:I'll pass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll pass. (Score:5, Insightful)
when asked they admitted that only about 35% of desktop users had Silverlight installed. Even if that is not a high estimate, it's pathetic
It's not pathetic at all.
Flash has been around since 1996.
Silverlight is a product two years in beta.
If the geek calls a 35% share of the client desktop "pathetic" - what is one to make of Firefox at 20% and Linux at 1%?
Re:I'll pass. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll pass. (Score:5, Insightful)
Moonlight supports Silverlight 1. Support for Silverlight 2 is in "preview".
Thus far the Moonlight project is "compatible" enough to tell you your version of Silverlight is out of date, and please upgrade.
Silverlight 1 and 2 are much more different than 2 and 3. The Mono development team has explain that implementing the full CLR for Moonlight 2 is one of the largest stages of the development process. For instance, Moonlight 2 Preview already has many Silverlight 3 features implemented. So, once Moonlight 2 is out, it will not be long before Moonlight 3.
Furthermore, I consider this the best pro-developer free software rant explaining the pros of mono in general:
http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/ [apebox.org]
And as soon as Moonlight catches up with Silverlight 2, Microsoft will have Silverlight 4 out. Let's face it, this is _exactly_ what everybody was predicting back when Moonlight started: endlessly running after Microsoft but never catching up, a perpetual existence as a "nice, but not useful for anything current" piece of software.
Re:Mod story flamebait (Score:2, Insightful)
. If Silverlight and other proprietary technologies are GAINING prominence, how can we win?
Easy. Just look at Chrome or Firefox: By offering a better product.
OSS advocates need to realize the reason they haven't made headway in areas except for maybe Apache and Databases is because their products are largely inferior.
The reason Flash and Silverlight have taken off is because HTML fundamentally sucks at dynamic applications. The sorts of applications which customers like. As long as proprietary technologies (such as Windows) are better solutions to the customer than their open alternatives they will win. There are plenty of examples of open standards that have taken off. Usually because they're best.