Microsoft killed off Silverlight.net this week. The Silverlight gallery is gone along with the Silverlight blogs, and 90% of the video training series as Microsoft prepares to kill off Siverlight.

From the comments:

The biggest mistake Microsoft made was to stop developing VB6. Everything after that has been a failure.

I agree that Microsoft stopping development of VB6 was a huge mistake.

D

IMO it is just politics that it isn't called "Silverlight.RT" or some such.

3 hours ago, Ian2 wrote

The new WinRT stuff is just Silverlight by another name, and closer to the metal to boot. 

IMO it is just politics that it isn't called "Silverlight.RT" or some such.

I agree with Ian. I use the MVVM design pattern and find XAML of Silverlight or WPF as the main feature that I require.

1 hour ago, Ian2 wrote

The new WinRT stuff is just Silverlight by another name, and closer to the metal to boot. 

IMO it is just politics that it isn't called "Silverlight.RT" or some such.

Except WinRT apps don't work in a variety of browsers they only work on Windows 8, they cannot run along with the desktop, require submission and approval from Microsoft to run, and Microsoft takes 30% of any money generated from your app.

And as far a "closer to the metal" goes, you're the first person I've heard describe Windows 8 Metro apps as "closer to the metal".

Every time I go back to VB6, I realize how much of .NET is pulled straight from it. All they needed to do was add full OOP and it would have been fine.

Have you become an old fart who spits the bit of new technologies out? Say it isn't so!

A black hole will continue devouring technologies at MS until the attempt to resurrect Win32 in all of its glory is abandoned.

I'm wired differently. I like changes in technology. They are always improvements. Nothing is perfect so I don't mind having to change horses to reach the next station. It is stimulating to learn. You'll respect yourself in the morning.

Too many folks are OCD about technology. Too many developers spend too much time "getting comfortable" with new technolgies and too often wreck teams by holding out for their favored old technologies instead of learning new technologies -- even when the new technologies have been designed specifically for the system requirements at hand. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. VB6? You're mad, my friend, stove pipe hot mad I say...

5 minutes ago, JohnAskew wrote

@sysrpl: Win32 is not the future. To opine for VB6 shows your age. 

Au contraire.

WinRT is just a Win32 wrapper.. just like VB6.

27 minutes ago, spivonious wrote

Silverlight was never really alive.

Not as a Flash replacement on the web, but it gained traction as LOB framework. With MS killing Silverlight, and WPF and WindowsForms being on life support, Microsoft has absolutely no credible LOB story! (or desktop applications story for that matter) That's just insane. And no, WinRT is no answer because even 1990s MFC is pure sci fi compared to it in terms of abilities.

2 minutes ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

*snip*

Au contraire.

WinRT is just a Win32 wrapper.. just VB6.

1)  VB6 != Win32   (EDIT: since you edited your post) so what?

2) holdouts for vb6 certainly show their age. and attitude.

9 minutes ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

*snip*

Au contraire.

WinRT is just a Win32 wrapper.. just like VB6.

*snip*

Not as a Flash replacement on the web, but it gained traction as LOB framework. With MS killing Silverlight, and WPF and WindowsForms being on life support, Microsoft has absolutely no credible LOB story! (or desktop applications story for that matter) That's just insane. And no, WinRT is no answer because 1990s MFC is pure sci fi compared to it.

WPF is on life support? Prove it.

1 minute ago, JohnAskew wrote

*snip*

WPF is on life support? Prove it.

Of course it is.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/

Click on "Windows" there, you get this:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/default.aspx

Hm, there is a "Desktop" item, there, you click on it and..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/desktop/

Stll no WPF! But: "Explore the docs about desktop app development ...Check out the Windows Development Reference for in-depth technical information about how to build desktop apps...." you click on it and.. Tada!:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/desktop/hh447209

That's the Win32 documentation! So, the prefered way to write desktop applications is Win32 apparently. According to MSDN at least.

I am not saying WPF is EOL, I am sure WPF applications will continue to run for a long time to come.. but Microsoft's attention level to it is barely above their attention to WinForms.

10 minutes ago, wastingtime​withforums wrote

*snip*

Of course it is.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/

Click on "Windows" there, you get this:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/default.aspx

Hm, there is a "Desktop" item, there, you click on it and..

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/desktop/

Stll no WPF! But: "Explore the docs about desktop app development ...Check out the Windows Development Reference for in-depth technical information about how to build desktop apps...." you click on it and.. Tada!:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/desktop/hh447209

That's the Win32 documentation! So, the prefered way to write desktop applications is Win32 apparently. According to MSDN at least.

I am not saying WPF is EOL, I am sure WPF applications will continue to run for a long time to come.. but Microsoft's attention level to it is barely above their attention to WinForms.

Then you can safely assume that MS is at work morphing WPF to something better. And, like always, it will be backwards compatible as MS is the world leader in that department.

I bet my career on it. Like always. And win.

Let's try navigating to the .NET homepage and see if we can find WPF from there. Look, there's even a section named "What's new in WPF Version 4.5 RC". They must have killed it off and buried the corpse under a pile of new features. Makes sense.

9 minutes ago, Blue Ink wrote

They must have killed it off and buried the corpse under a pile of new features.

You owe me a new keyboard...

20 minutes ago, Blue Ink wrote

@wastingtimewithforums: Funny. Except that the "archived page" for Windows 7 is exactly the same, without any trace of WPF. Maybe it's because it's considered part of .NET? 

Let's see how the MSDN frontpage looked like in 2010 (before the "re-imagined" virus):

http://web.archive.org/web/20100711074813/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

We click on "Desktop", this leads to:

BOOM. WPF mentioned right on the frontpage of the Windows MSDN page. Now it's buried somewhere under .NET .. there isn't even a direct link on the MSDN frontpage to the .NET page you linked to.

How about the MSDN quicklinks: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.aspx Not a trace.. (funny that even XNA is mentioned, yet no WPF)

So, WPF got some new features? So did WinForms in 2007.. Look, I am not happy about it (my disdain for WinRT and Win8 is not a secret), just observing the obvious.

Now you have Xaml in Windows Phone x apps and Windows 8 Store apps. And Xaml is a lot easier to use than HTML5 for these types of applications. "Silverlight" plugin might be dead, but Xaml is growing, with the inclusion of new controls for WP8 like ViewportControl among others.

I would never ever ever spend all day on Apple's development forum bashing their software. How stupid would that be? Very stupid. Very unproductive. Very douche-baggy. Troll on, garth.

"We realize that some of our customers may have experienced challenges accessing links to content that had resided on the original Silverlight site. We apologize for any inconvenience and we're working to resolve these issues for our customers.

"The consolidation of this content does not impact Microsoft's Silverlight offering. We released Silverlight 5 in December 2011 and we've committed to supporting Silverlight into the year 2021."

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-pulls-the-plug-on-its-silverlight-net-site-7000008494/