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?"
Alien Versus Predator (Score:5, Funny)
Insert your own joke here.
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the assumption sideline-commenting non-designer coders who aren't in the web or multimedia industry make, like a lot of guys here in Slashdot who do mostly non-frontend stuff. Until then, don't expect Flash to vanish anytime soon.
Same case goes for HTML5. Without proper authoring tools for the non-programmer layman, don't expect any other tech to knock off Flash from its perch. Nothing comes close to the Flash Professional authoring tool's ability for creating vector animations and integrating motion, sound and interactivity with ease today.
Even then, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch announced that Adobe would be the 1st one to build the same kind of tools for HTML5. In fact, they've already built HTML5 + CSS3 support for Dreamweaver [adobe.com].
As for video, there's a good reason Flash exploded on the net long before it had the capability to play videos, so don't expect alternative video players to end it either.
Heck, I heard even Blizzard used Flash for certain parts of Starcraft 2's UI. [citation needed]
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:4, Funny)
One of them goes: "Stop! I think I just lost an electron!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm positive!"
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:4, Funny)
"For you, no charge."
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me up when Microsoft comes up with a tool that allows non-coder graphic designers or animators to create entire apps in Silverlight with the same ease that you can with Flash.
Wake me up when Adobe or Microsoft (or anyone, for that mater) comes up with a tool that allows non-coder graphic designers or animators to create entire apps that don't take up huge amounts of bandwidth, don't run like drunk turtles, and don't reinvent ever UI widget under the sun (including label text.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wake me up when Microsoft comes up with a tool that allows non-coder graphic designers or animators to create entire apps in Silverlight with the same ease that you can with Flash.
The assumption that a non-coder can code an application (using any tool/language/whatever) is exactly why the web is littered with crappy web sites and applications that don't work like they should.
People have skills in particular areas and need to recognize that and know when to ask for help. For instance I have a knack for coding but not graphics/design. So when I'm coding up a new web application I go search for a template/designer/whatever I need to fill the gap in my skill set.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
whoa. hold on there.
you're saying we have crappy GUI webapps, and the reason they are so crappy is because a designer (ie a non-coder) created them and not a programmer.
If there's one thing I know, its this: Never let a programmer create any form of GUI.
In an ideal world, we'd have design separate from the code... but then, in that same world we'd have de-coupled GUIs from applications, and DB code in the DB, written by DBAs!
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:5, Funny)
The Bartender replies, "You'd better try petting him first."
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you grasped the theme here.
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Which one would you choose? That's like asking if you would prefer a punch in the face or a kick in the groin.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's more like the choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.
Re:Alien Versus Predator (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Insert your own joke here.
How do you stop a dog from shagging your leg?
Suck it off first.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
WHAT HAVE I DONE?
Which one should you choose? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which one should you choose?
The one with the largest tits? No, wait, that's for assistants.
I don't fricking care as long as the page works? Yep, that's the one for the devs.
Which one should you choose? (Score:2, Insightful)
Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
At the moment it's better to wait than to use any of those two. They both have no long-term future.
However if you only have a short term project and you really need something _now_, Flash is just somewhat more availiable.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
"Somewhat" is an understatement.
Flash is ubiquitous. You'd be hard-pressed to find a computer without it. With Silverlight, MS had to pay developers to build something with it and in many cases (NYTimes) thy still abandoned it. The availability is 98% Flash, 5-10% Silverlight.
As for waiting, HTML5 and strong support is years away. Don't be fooled by "Browser X scores 100/100 on Acid 3" -- I am working on a HTML5/CSS3 project right now and all browsers have major rendering bugs and omissions, most of them documented (aliasing for transformed objects, no clipping in some instances when border-radius is used and many more).
Even ignoring older versions of IE, developing any complex app for Firefox, Webkit and Opera is still a daunting task.
"HTML5" may be the newest buzzword, much like "ajax" and "web 2.0" but the reality is in many many cases Flash would give better results in less time and with broader reach.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The only reason Silverlight has any install base at all is that Microsoft pushed it out through Windows Update.
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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: (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as you stay in the MS stack,
and there's the rub - no more 'best of breed' interoperability, its MS-only, all the way. Of course, that's hope MS likes it. I'm not sure its a winning strategy for a corporate to follow nowadays, what with iPhone, iPads, Android and Meego coming up. The future of computing is "convergent communication" devices, not desktop PCs, so anyone following a Ms-only strategy might get burned in the future.
This is probably the best reason to become familiar with Flex/Air/Flash in
Re: (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:Which one should you choose? (Score:4, Insightful)
Flash is for Flash Video - Will soon (Hopefully) be redundant
Silverlight is for .....we nothing really
Both are blocked on all my browsers, Flash with Flashblock so I can play video when I want, Silverlight by not installing it ...
Games are better played on the PC not in a browser, and I would not trust Silverlight with a Windows Machine, and it does not work properly on any other
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For DRM'd video content nothing works properly, it's broken as designed
If your TV company does not have it's own player, give up it won't work reliably and on all machines ...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither is the correct answer. Or more specifically, HTML5.
To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Or that would be the analogy, if HTML5 adoption wasn't in its infancy and inconsistently implemented where it is supported.
Re:Which one should you choose? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the long run, maybe.
It will all depend on whether Microsoft will support it properly in their future web browsers, they might say their committed to supporting all kinds of standards right now, but I have heard that from them before, so I want hold my breath.
If you actually need to make something for a paying customer right now then unfortunately Flash is very often the correct (or even the only) choice right now. Silverlight may be good enough or even better in many respects but does not come anywhere near the reach of Flash. Flash is basically everywhere. The only exception is hand-held devices but on those I would in fact agree with Steve Jobs, it is usually better to make the effort to create a native version.
Really! I do wish html5 was ready and available everywhere, but it is not. Maybe in 3 to 5 years when it has reached something like 50% of the browsers 'out there'. Right now it is just a toy to play with to get a glimpse of what the future may behold.
This does not mean I disagree with the ideas behind HTML5 or open standards, by all means it would be perfect if I could use it in my projects right now. But my customers actually require something that would run on (at least) 95% of all Internet connected computers without the user installing anything Flash meats that criteria, Silverlight does not and HTML5 does not even show up on the radar yet.
At least there is some hope that the future will be brighter. :-)
Re: (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.
To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What? A serious answer?
I agree with you. Just coz I'm a google fanboi.
Re:To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:5, Informative)
Re:To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (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:To appease the most visitors with ease (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why Moonlight was doomed to fail from the get go. The devs could implement the thing perfectly and it still wouldn't play the DRM'd content that most Silverlight sites actually use it for. So that is more or less that.
Silverlight as a concept is sound and in many ways more desirable than Flash. e.g. you can write proper multithreaded apps in Silverlight. It's too bad it's firmly stuck to one platform and any claims it works on others are just a bad joke.
WebGL (Score:3, Interesting)
Ummm ... how are either of the above better than WebGL + natively JIT compiled Javascript ?
Re:WebGL (Score:5, Insightful)
how are either of the above better than WebGL + natively JIT compiled Javascript ?
A catchier name.
WebGL is the future, though not the present (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox 3 doesn't support WebGL
Really? It works for me, although you need to use the non-standard namespace because it currently only implements a draft (Firefox 3.6).
Wikipedia's article about Safari doesn't even mention WebGL
It's in the WebKit nightly builds. I think it's in the latest shipping Safari, but only enabled if you write a user defaults value you enable it.
Re: (Score:2)
It works for me, although you need to use the non-standard namespace because it currently only implements a draft (Firefox 3.6).
What might this namespace be called, so that I can Google it? I tried Google searches for firefox 3.6 webgl and firefox 3.6 webgl namespace but neither appeared to produce relevant results.
It's in the WebKit nightly builds.
This page, last updated a week ago [learningwebgl.com], states that that only Snow Leopard supports this version of WebKit. Users of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) aren't likely to buy a copy of 10.6 (Snow Leopard) just to see your site.
I'm guessing that in the short run, WebGL apps will have to use a layer written in JavaScript that implements
It's either WebGL or Flashblock (Score:2)
Firefox 4 isn't due out until November
Firefox 4 beta 3 supports WebGL
I am aware of that. But what is the installed base of Firefox 4 beta 3 among one's web site's audience, especially given that Firefox 4 is reported to break extensions designed for Firefox 3.6.x [cybernetnews.com]? Until the Flash whitelist plug-in [mozilla.org], which states that it works with "Firefox 1.5 - 3.7a5pre", is updated for Firefox 4, I do not feel ready to give it up just to try WebGL, and I'd bet that a lot of other Firefox users agree with me.
Re: (Score:2)
Flash and silverlight are usable by a lot of people, some of which really have no business coding. WebGL is going to demand a higher calibe
Both feed on developers (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither one. Given the prices they are asking, particularly for upgrades after they have their hooks into you. You might as well sign over a significant percentage of your annual income over to their CEO's retirement package as you become an indentured developer.
Better for the community to seek and develop Open Source Solutions with equivalent functionality via web service architectures. Given the way the global economy and the environment upon which it is based is headed, we need cheaper and more efficient solutions, not ever more expensive ones that lock developers in.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the prices they are asking
There exists free software to produce rich Internet applications for all three platforms: Flash Player, Silverlight, and HTML5. Yes, you do need a Windows license to test your RIA properly, but if you rely on your web site to pay for food and rent in a developed country, $300 every three years is chump change.
Better for the community to seek and develop Open Source Solutions with equivalent functionality
You mean like haXe and Gnash for Flash Player, MonoDevelop and Moonlight for Silverlight, and Firefox with developer extensions for HTML5?
Whose copyright (Score:2)
If it only costs you $300 every three years then you are infringing on copyright.
Windows Vista Business costs $300. Windows 7 Professional costs $300. You use development tools distributed as free software, and you either run the free development tools on Windows or you run them on Linux and then test on a Windows machine on the same network. Whose copyright does this scenario infringe?
Re: (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].
Neither (Score:5, Insightful)
Which one should you choose?
HTML 5. Until that's finalized, I luckily don't require any of the features these two hold as RIAs (like Video). And, if I had the need for video, I would only evaluate these two on their video capabilities and only use it for that component on my content. And since neither of them list Ogg Theora in their codecs on this review and that's what browsers I care about support so far in HTML 5, I'd have to weigh storing videos in multiple codecs ... everyone's really done such a good job of making me just not want to think about video right now as a web developer. I guess I suffer from video anxiety.
Side note: Anyone else find that these *world sites release similar yet different articles daily [infoworld.com]?
Chrome Frame install base, or lack thereof (Score:2)
HTML 5
Viewing HTML5 properly on Windows requires either A. installing the Google Chrome Frame BHO for Internet Explorer or B. installing another web browser. I'd estimate that far more PC users have Flash Player installed than Chrome Frame.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also to add that most Modern Commercial Web developers are more concerned about having computability across browsers then any Open vs closed standard. Being that Microsoft is dragging on HTML 5 support most will stay with flash as it will do what they need functionally. While supporting and working with 99.99% of the user base.
Flash works for Linux, Windows, Mac, and even for some other Unixes (how ever may not be the most updated). And for IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari. All in all a good choice.
Silverligh
Re: (Score:2)
FTFY
Re:Neither (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine, HTML 5. HTML 5 is great, we can all agree on that. Now which video codec? The one nice thing about Silverlight and Flash is that they're, more or less, all inclusive packages. HTML 5 relies on too many outside variables ATM to make it viable. The openness of HTML 5 is a blessing and a curse. We still need Silverlight and Flash for the time being for the 75% of the market who's never heard of a codec. The road to HTML 5 is going to be an ugly and bloody one...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Fine, HTML 5. HTML 5 is great, we can all agree on that. Now which video codec?
Flash provides DRM
Silverlight provides DRM.
HTML5 does not provide DRM.
The codec is the one with DRM, so that rules out H.264, Theora, and WebM. Got any in mind?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, gotta pay the bills. In its current form, native HTML5 browser media players are no solution.
Re: (Score:2)
Right now, there aren't any HTML5 methods of embedding live video. Apple's got HTTP Live Streaming, but it isn't a standard or universally supported.
HTML5 is great, but we need to be very, very, very careful of fragmentation [alistapart.com] and non-standard features.
Re: (Score:2)
Moonlight is behind (Score:5, Insightful)
Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in
The page you linked admits that "there is currently no Linux support". Moonlight, a Free clone of Silverlight, is good for displaying "This page requires a newer version of Silverlight" notices.
Easy Choice (Score:2)
Which one should you choose?
I know which choice I'm making - HTML5.
JavaFX (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yes, in the same way there is a Microsoft or COBOL bias, i.e. a strongly negative one.
Re:JavaFX (Score:5, Interesting)
Java's layout managers are pretty atrocious ... the gridbag layout managed to achieve a state of sadomasochistic perfection that hasn't been seen since the Middle Ages when plague victims would whip themselves for thinking God was mad at them. But the whole state of UI developing is nightmarish. Whenever I nested layers upon layers of layout managers, I felt like an ancient Incan, setting traps in a tomb for any poor suckers wishing to alter my application UI. Of course, that poor sucker was usually me.
In any case, some dude actually realized the insanity of the process and wrote his own layout manager called Mig Layout [miglayout.com] which puts an end to nesting and actually makes sense. Dare I say easy? I rewrote my last app in it and never turned back. Give it whirl although keep the retard with the bat around just in case.
Re: (Score:2)
2022? What kind of FUD BS is that? (Score:3)
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.
WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
As good as an analogy as that is ... I'm not sure I can finish my peanut butter toast anymore.
That's just wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
I dunno, which one is Flash? The one with corn? Then please serve me some of that.
magazine excerpt? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like it came straight from a magazine that worships only those spending on ads. I vote neither, but rather to look forward and leave the fossils for future archaeologists to study or laugh about. Seriously, just because it's an ad for both MS and Adobe doesn't mean it isn't an ad.
AJAX (Score:4, Insightful)
Plain old HTML plus AJAX where required, plus whatever parts of HTML5 are working now = superior functionality when compared to Flash/Silverlight, except if you are youtube or a pornsite.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For simplistic websites, sure. Works like a charm. Developing a major LOB app that has to deal with entity state, client state etc, doing it in JavaScript/AJAX and HTML would be suicidal at best. The functionality simply isn't there, and you'd be insane to try it.
The vast majority of SW development is in-house apps that cater to very specific LOB needs. For those apps, Silverlight is the optimal choice if you have control of the environment, and Flash/Flex if you need to share with the general world outside
None of them, complemented with Flash (Score:3, Insightful)
Use standard HTML for as much as possible. Complement the rest with flash.
If you choose Silverlight you'll exclude automatically all platforms which are not Windows mainstream (Vista and 7). Flash is well supported about everywhere.
I'm typing this on a Ubuntu workstation with Chrome. No Silverlight available here.
Re: (Score:2)
JavaFX (Score:5, Funny)
JavaFX
jumped the shark (Score:2)
Comparing Apples to Rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
MLB: It does not take long to see that MLB had such an uproar of customer complaints about SilverLight that the MS player was quickly “benched”: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10212843-93.html [cnet.com]
Netflix: The Netflix subsidized SilverLight player has resulted in an absolute flood of complains and a continual stream of glitches: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10199350-56.html [cnet.com] http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/03/netflix-updates/ [wired.com]
Of course, being that this is
Re:Comparing Apples to Rocks (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny, I have only ever had a handful of issues with the netflix player, and those I'm pretty sure were attributed to other aspects of the machine (likely a temperature related failure).
Jumping over to Flash though, to watch the Daily Show, or anything through Boxie or Hulu, I get choppy play back, or the video drops out, or I have to try to skip ahead a second after the player hangs coming back from a commercial. Total pain in the ass. My favorite is when the Flash player crashes the tab in IE8, so IE tries to restore the tab, which fires up the Flash player, that crashes the tab... and the cycle continues until I bring up the task manager and kill IE. Pure win.
The MLB jump was totally expected. At that point they were using SL2, which was really SL1.1 with a name change so people wouldn't associate it with SL1, that used an entirely different system (SL1 was basically a XAML rendering plug in that depended on JS for everything). SL2 was the first iteration of SL to use the Silverlight Framework (a trimmed down version of the .Net framework).
It was too much, too early. And I would expect the exact same failure if the MLB attempted to make the same transition to Flash version 2 or to HTML5 today. They would have been much, much better off waiting for another year and getting SL3 out, THEN trying to crack into the bigger markets.
-Rick
Dukakis vs Bush... (Score:2, Insightful)
Javascript and HTML do well in a modern browser. That is the first choice.
Flash would be the second choice, that at least has multiple platforms it can run on. You only exclude the iCrap...
Silverlight? NOT the 3rd choice. The third choice is Java (and I hate Java). It is multiplatform but developing for it requires you to be a Java Developer and that is a bridge too far.
Silverlight would be behind Hypercard, RealPlayer, Quicktime and other things that
The web sucks (Score:2)
I do not need a RIA environment to run rudimentary word processors or spreadsheets, plain old HTML form controls would get the job done if I was desperate.
Google mail is doing just fine as is and is about the only Web application I run.
But just like the last 20 years, the mass public will run around with its head cut off about how the web will take over everything, which it hasn't and never will. Jeesh, remembe
Which one should you choose? (Score:2)
Silverlight (Score:2)
Well this is the obviously (on slashdot) the unpopular choice, but I would say Silverlight. Maybe I say this because I work on a SL product. The fact is, HTML5 would be preferred (for cross platform), but it's hardly fully supported, and more importantly the project I work on is an enterprise application that has over 20 developers. Good luck co-ordinating an HTML5 effort like that. And Flash? Ya right. And while we could have done ASP.NET/ajax, it didn't have the kind of interactivity and "nice-looking" we
Endorsed by Queen. (Score:2)
Flash of course. Freddie Mercury never wrote a song called Silverlight.
Sizzle vs. Proper (Score:2)
My hope is that HTML5 will render the pop/sizzle question meaningless as you could have sufficient pop/sizzle with something that is both accessible and compatible.
As it stands, if yo
Enough with the 'neither' answers (Score:2)
Going through, I'm shocked at how many blind idealists who's answers are basically one of two things:
Neither, because they don't do X the way I like.
Neither, because they aren't free.
Neither, because HTML 5 will be mo' better.
As George Thorogood said "Get a haircut and get a real job"
If you work for a BUSINESS and that business is interested in making MONEY you are going to pick a platform and get to work. No business worth it's EIN is going to say, oh, lets just wait until this other product is finalized
Silverlight for in-house and Flash/Flex for other (Score:5, Insightful)
For major LOB apps, the kind that needs to keep state on the client to a degree, the kind that deals with data from a large number of data sources, say Oracle plus a couple of WebService servers integrating some financial data from a IBM system-i solution etc, the choice is IMNSHO rather easy. You go with Silverlight. If it is internal.
Typically such apps are developed by moderate sized, or even small-ish development teams who have no need to deploy outside of the corporate network. Silverlight has, by a decent margin at 4.0, the upper hand on Flash. The tools and the programming language are simply better - maintaining C# code is far easier than maintaining Actionscript code. C# is basically just Java, to the degree that you can almost copy and paste Java and compile it with a C# compiler (not that I recommend that, there are things you'd miss that you should make use of in C#).
Some people would recommend you do this in Javascript/AJAX etc, they are insane or have never developed a serious LOB app. You really, really should not even try. GWT makes it a little less painful, but only a little so. There are still a significant amount of differences between browsers, even when compiled by GWT to browser-specific Javascript, to make GWT a maintenance nightmare.
Flash/Flex (haven't moved on to the latest one) is good if you need to integrate with the external world. For suppliers and partners you can just mandate Silverlight, but for the general public you should go with Flash. On the other hand, if your app exposed to the general world is of a high complexity with client state management etc, you might want to re-think the approach in general.
Silverlight 4 only supports Microsoft Windows (Score:3, Interesting)
For those who don't read subject line:
Silverlight 4 only 'runs' on Microsoft Windows. Moonlight goes as far as supporting Silverlight 2.0 specs, and even that is flaky - no DRM support (don't bitch about it to me, bitch about it to content developers deploying it), some parts of API is missing, codecs have to be downloaded manually and more funk. Compare that to Flash Player, a similar and similarly abused technology, but one which works on most platforms today without a lot of funky quirks. I would know, I write Flash Player applications on Ubuntu.
In a nutshell: Silverlight is not even in the same league as Flash, as far as adoptance and platform support is concerned. Microsoft is also out of touch with reality and it is my opinion that they should not be depended upon when it comes to "enriching" the Web, but I have elaborated on this before, so I am not going to repeat myself.
In fact the whole article sounds (didn't say it in fact is) like someones desperate pitch to bring peoples attention back to Silverlight, as if it is already forgotten. Which it should be, because there is at least one wrong thing with it - the abovementioned platform support, which I believe will not catch up anyway. Things just go too fast these days, if you are not on top after a year, scrap it and redirect dire resources elsewhere.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Silverlight 4 only 'runs' on Microsoft Windows.
No, it also runs on Mac OS X.
And Linux? The global stats for desktop Linux users on the web are still on the order of 1%. Of course, it may be different for a particular task - you may be writing an internal app for an all-Linux shop, for example - but it's certainly not a reasonable argument for most scenarios.
Re: (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: (Score:2)
Or you could just you a native application instead of having everything go through the browser.
Windows Phone 7 doesn't have native applications; instead, it has Silverlight. Nintendo won't let you develop a native WiiWare or DSiWare application unless you're an established company in the video game industry (see the story of Bob's Game), and as I understand it, Sony has a similar policy around PS3 and PSP.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I like how Iphone support is seen as important when it lacks this feature that many other phones have; yet companies (and even public funded organisations like the BBC and Government) are happy to write proprietary apps only for those with Iphones...
There's an uproar when the BBC or Government requires the use of things like Windows or Flash (and rightly so), even though 90%+ of the population can use them. But requiring the use of an Iphone, that only ~3% of the mobile phone population have? Oh, perfectly
Chrome Frame, auto-updates, and animation (Score:2)
Neither.......HTML5......no plugins to crash or cause instability.
Google Chrome Frame, the HTML5 viewer for Internet Explorer, is just as much a plugin as Flash Player or Silverlight.
Been wanting to see flash go away for years and then Microsoft came out with Silverlight and its just another plugin you have to worry about and keep updated.
In that case, the answer is not eliminating Flash Player or Silverlight but instead automatic updates. Flash Player for Windows appears to have it covered; if an update is available, it grabs the update automatically the next time you log in to your user account.
HTML5 for everyone!! All flash is good for is advertisements and youporn sites.
How do you recommend making a vector animated series like Homestar Runner without Flash? Making it in Flash and then rendering the S
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All this AJAX-ification of the web (you too, Skashdot!) has made web browsing almost impossible for older sub-500MHz machines. Turning off both Flash & Javascript is the only way to be able to browse decently on a 400MHz One Laptop Per Child XO-1 machine [wikipedia.org], and some sites like Facebook stop functioning properly (profile wall posts no longer display, etc) when Javascript is turned off.
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At this point, HTML5 is like communism -- workable in theory, but only in theory.
In the real world, people choose between solutions that work for a majority of users right now.
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That is not the same thing as saying that it won't come with a lot of legacy baggage and proprietary extensions to try and lure developers into another re-run of the IE6/ActiveX fiasco that we are all still paying for today, a decade later. The only thing that is going to
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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?
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The primary purpose of HTML5 is to drive people to the Apple AppStore.
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That's the problem with most criticisms of Adobe products. People who aren't designers don't use them they way they were intended to be used. It's like watching a novice carpenter complain that his saw is an awful hammer.
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At this point, calling Flash dead is like saying that people who buy cars are chumps because we'll all have flying cars instead someday -- a statement that makes sense only if you utterly ignore reality.
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You speak truth, but at the same time those exploits were fixed a lot faster than the year+ that MS often takes. Of the two I've dealt with a lot more machines compromised by MS's apathy towards browser fixes than flash/pdf exploits, but YMMV obviously.