Flash is dead, it just doesn't know it yet

I was awaiting for the release of Silverlight 4, so in all boredom was sitting and refreshing silverlight.net website ( hehe )... anyway, I saw a commercial there for some SL controls, here is their demo : http://labs.infragistics.com/silverlight/lobsamples/2010.1/ and it suddenly hit me that Flash is really dead, it just doesn't know it yet.

I think slowly, more and more developers will be looking more seriously at Silverlight and in time, only some "designers" will keep Flash alive until it dies a slow death. ( For all I care, I say let it die yesterday. )

Given the choice of Flash vs Silverlight, the only thing which currently is "bad" about SL is its marketshare, I don't really see why anyone would go with Flash-anything at all.

Let us also not forget, when doing Silverlight stuff, you have the joys of using the Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend. Compare those to Adobe CS5 or whatever, it's major LOLKTHXWTFBBQ imho.

Come to think of it, maybe even more of the windows "traditional" applications might also go the same way.

Speaking of SL4, why haven't they released SL 4 together with Visual Studo 2010?

As it stands now, only SL3 is included with VS 2010, you need to install the Silverlight 4 toolkit separately. Why is that so? Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 were released basically at the same time.  It just adds hassle.

They should have released SL 4 and VS 2010 at the same day, with the newest SL SDK already included in VS.

wastingtimewithforums said:

Speaking of SL4, why haven't they released SL 4 together with Visual Studo 2010?

 

As it stands now, only SL3 is included with VS 2010, you need to install the Silverlight 4 toolkit separately. Why is that so? Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 were released basically at the same time.  It just adds hassle.

 

They should have released SL 4 and VS 2010 at the same day, with the newest SL SDK already included in VS.

Yeah, probably some dumb marketing person somewhere. haha... I had to uninstall SL3 SDK manually and then install SL4 SDK manually. Seems like an awful lot of mess to me this way.

and on a totally offtopic note, when installing SQL Management Studio, this thing looks like it installs SQL server almost all the way, had to search on the Internet a lot and then to be sure, I had to take a snapshot of the dev machine and then go ahead with install incase it messes up stuff.

Why they don't release a "clean" SSMSE is beyond me.

wastingtimewithforums said:

Speaking of SL4, why haven't they released SL 4 together with Visual Studo 2010?

 

As it stands now, only SL3 is included with VS 2010, you need to install the Silverlight 4 toolkit separately. Why is that so? Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 were released basically at the same time.  It just adds hassle.

 

They should have released SL 4 and VS 2010 at the same day, with the newest SL SDK already included in VS.

they have multiple packages that use Visual Studio and VS has to be done before the other things know for sure what the platform is doing and what to expect.  not just silverlight.

the new windows phone dev tools use VS,

XNA game studio uses Visual Studio

Tools for Office use VS

TFS uses VS

so some of them hit the finish line together but a lot of them will come in later...

and Silverlight runs at a whole different speed then VS as Kurt said.

so with multiple moving targets each traveling at different speeds it's no surprise to me.

should the force us to wait for them all to finish ?

I would rather have them as they become ready.

figuerres said:

wastingtimewithforums said:

*snip*

they have multiple packages that use Visual Studio and VS has to be done before the other things know for sure what the platform is doing and what to expect.  not just silverlight.

the new windows phone dev tools use VS,

XNA game studio uses Visual Studio

Tools for Office use VS

TFS uses VS

so some of them hit the finish line together but a lot of them will come in later...

 

and Silverlight runs at a whole different speed then VS as Kurt said.

 

so with multiple moving targets each traveling at different speeds it's no surprise to me.

should the force us to wait for them all to finish ?

 

I would rather have them as they become ready.

To put it another way, if it was just preparing dinner, and you received your pudding two hours late in a restaurant, then there would be room to complain.

Visual Studio is not dinner, its release date was planned way before Silverlight 4 beta at PDC. Silverlight is one of those unique agile projects at Microsoft, toe to-toe with Blend.

It is the difference with being invited to Buckingham Palace for dinner, and going to a Heston Blementhal restaurant.

Bad anaology, I know, but I couldn't resist it.

I've been hearing the same "Silverlight is going to dominate" for the 3+ years Silverlight has been out, and still the most notable place I've seen SL being used in on Channel 9's website. It's going to get to the point where people are going to make year of the Linux desktop type quips about it.

If anything HTML5 is positioned to kill Flash. Unlike SL, it's actually used on the world's major Flash websites (eg: YouTube).

Bass said:

I've been hearing the same "Silverlight is going to dominate" for the 3+ years Silverlight has been out, and still the most notable place I've seen SL being used in on Channel 9's website. It's going to get to the point where people are going to make year of the Linux desktop type quips about it.

 

If anything HTML5 is positioned to kill Flash. Unlike SL, it's actually used on the world's major Flash websites (eg: YouTube).

I agree. Aside from Microsoft, NBC (Microsoft again through MSNBC), and C9, I haven't seen Silverlight being used anywhere. Flash is on pretty much every website, even if it's just for ads.

spivonious said:

Bass said:

*snip*

I agree. Aside from Microsoft, NBC (Microsoft again through MSNBC), and C9, I haven't seen Silverlight being used anywhere. Flash is on pretty much every website, even if it's just for ads.

Well, I don't really understand why one have to die in order for the other to "win"...

We do website ads in Flash, we do web apps and desktop apps in Silverlight, we do websites in HTML (not 5, nobody knows what 5 will even look like when it's done in 2020)... horses for courses, as a friend of mine used to say

PaoloM said:

spivonious said:

*snip*

Well, I don't really understand why one have to die in order for the other to "win"...

 

We do website ads in Flash, we do web apps and desktop apps in Silverlight, we do websites in HTML (not 5, nobody knows what 5 will even look like when it's done in 2020)... horses for courses, as a friend of mine used to say

I don't see why we keep bringing this up. Who expects a million Flash developers to switch to doing all their stuff with jQuery and <canvas>? I have yet to come across any argument for that kind of switch.

Here's a Silverlight app we did here. Build it in 3 weeks like I did...with "HTML 5", and I'll quit my job

http://www.gearuptoolkit.com/wwpartner/#1

Harlequin said:

PaoloM said:

*snip*

I don't see why we keep bringing this up. Who expects a million Flash developers to switch to doing all their stuff with jQuery and <canvas>? I have yet to come across any argument for that kind of switch.

 

Here's a Silverlight app we did here. Build it in 3 weeks like I did...with "HTML 5", and I'll quit my job

http://www.gearuptoolkit.com/wwpartner/#1

 

This is definitely one area where Microsoft is leading the way. Unless they are doing scripting based on support, I haven't run in to anything Flash on a Microsoft property (when I've bothered to right click) in quite some time.

Unlike the usual complaints about Microsoft not using their own products, this is one area where they are telling everybody, that they are serious, and that Silverlight is serious.

Bass said:

I've been hearing the same "Silverlight is going to dominate" for the 3+ years Silverlight has been out, and still the most notable place I've seen SL being used in on Channel 9's website. It's going to get to the point where people are going to make year of the Linux desktop type quips about it.

 

If anything HTML5 is positioned to kill Flash. Unlike SL, it's actually used on the world's major Flash websites (eg: YouTube).

It's because in VS2008 you couldn't really do SL in a good way without gUI tools. You had to buy Blend and many devs are hobby people and won't buy it. Now with VS2010, they "finally" can make SL stuff. I think that's why it wasn't so widespread.

PaoloM said:

spivonious said:

*snip*

Well, I don't really understand why one have to die in order for the other to "win"...

 

We do website ads in Flash, we do web apps and desktop apps in Silverlight, we do websites in HTML (not 5, nobody knows what 5 will even look like when it's done in 2020)... horses for courses, as a friend of mine used to say

I think it is a mistake to compare Flash ads to Silverlight. While many think Silverlight will just bring way more crappy ads, I think Silverlight will actually make the Internet better, by bringing "real" applications to it. As Harlequin said, HTML5 and JavaScript can not even come close to what Silverlight can do.

Let us not forget, HTML is basically a fancy document format.

kettch said:

Harlequin said:

*snip*

This is definitely one area where Microsoft is leading the way. Unless they are doing scripting based on support, I haven't run in to anything Flash on a Microsoft property (when I've bothered to right click) in quite some time.

 

Unlike the usual complaints about Microsoft not using their own products, this is one area where they are telling everybody, that they are serious, and that Silverlight is serious.

I honestly think that in the future ( 10+ years from now ) there will not be a "Windows" as we know it. This is why I agree that Microsoft is fully behind Silverlight and very serious. I think in time, we will see just something super light, almost like a browser, kind'a like the way Google is doing it, but it'll run mostly Silverlight. ... and Windows till be in the cloud almost completely and the client is kind'a like a light RDP thing.

I know many might disagree but I am a firm believer that traditional Windows applications will die and Silverlight will replace most, if not all of them.

Bass said:

I've been hearing the same "Silverlight is going to dominate" for the 3+ years Silverlight has been out, and still the most notable place I've seen SL being used in on Channel 9's website. It's going to get to the point where people are going to make year of the Linux desktop type quips about it.

 

If anything HTML5 is positioned to kill Flash. Unlike SL, it's actually used on the world's major Flash websites (eg: YouTube).

Umm you do know that Netflix uses Silverlight for their streaming video.  I would say that is pretty huge.

kettch said:

Harlequin said:

*snip*

This is definitely one area where Microsoft is leading the way. Unless they are doing scripting based on support, I haven't run in to anything Flash on a Microsoft property (when I've bothered to right click) in quite some time.

 

Unlike the usual complaints about Microsoft not using their own products, this is one area where they are telling everybody, that they are serious, and that Silverlight is serious.

http://www.kin.com/

turrican said:

kettch said:

*snip*

I honestly think that in the future ( 10+ years from now ) there will not be a "Windows" as we know it. This is why I agree that Microsoft is fully behind Silverlight and very serious. I think in time, we will see just something super light, almost like a browser, kind'a like the way Google is doing it, but it'll run mostly Silverlight. ... and Windows till be in the cloud almost completely and the client is kind'a like a light RDP thing.

 

I know many might disagree but I am a firm believer that traditional Windows applications will die and Silverlight will replace most, if not all of them.

That would be really really bad for Microsoft. As it is, Windows revenue makes up a huge portion of their income. Thats why Microsoft hates web standards, because web standards can be implemented by anyone. And that's bad for business when your business model relies on locking people into proprietary technology. Silverlight is just an extension of this.

Bass said:

turrican said:

*snip*

That would be really really bad for Microsoft. As it is, Windows revenue makes up a huge portion of their income. Thats why Microsoft hates web standards, because web standards can be implemented by anyone. And that's bad for business when your business model relies on locking people into proprietary technology. Silverlight is just an extension of this.

Thats why Microsoft hates web standards

Really? I guess you have proof of that...

btw, let me know when I'll be able to write cross-platform desktop applications in HTML. I'm doing it right now in Silverlight...