Unoffcial ​Clearificat​ion of Silverlight focus shift.

This is not from Microsoft. This is not official statement. But, I think this is what MS ment.

Silverlight focus shift = less use of Silverlight on MS websites, aka Bing Maps. The main thing is they need to push new features that are accessable to non-SL browser users. And Bing Maps particular has to make sure that is true. Because use two versions of Bing Maps reallyconfused users.

Although I have to say, this is too early to make this statement when people don't have HTML5 browsers. Silverlight is much consistant if you want to do a feature rich map. If they really want to cater majority of browser users without plug-ins, should use HTML4 instead. More like, hey, we are pushing HTML4 LOLz.

Or

HTML = Maximum Reach

Silverlight = Platform intergration (on supported platforms)

I think the bigger question is:

If our company spends a lot of resources developing a "cross platform" RIA that is supposed to run on Windows/Mac, will it still run on Windows/Mac 5 years from now? Will it even run on Windows 5 years from now?

I get the feeling that Microsoft is trying to say "use SL for your intranet apps and for WinPhone7, but for public websites, HTML 5 is the future." We're already seeing Apple not installing Flash by default. It is only a matter of time before all of the Flash and SL video players disappear in favor of the <video> and <audio> elements.

4 hours ago, BitFlipper wrote

I think the bigger question is:

If our company spends a lot of resources developing a "cross platform" RIA that is supposed to run on Windows/Mac, will it still run on Windows/Mac 5 years from now? Will it even run on Windows 5 years from now?

That can be said to HTML. Some old pages break in new browsers.

But, IMO, MS does a pretty good job on BC, so, you shouldn't be worried.

1 hour ago, magicalclick wrote

*snip*

That can be said to HTML. Some old pages break in new browsers.

But, IMO, MS does a pretty good job on BC, so, you shouldn't be worried.

But is MS going to care about the Mac SL plugin 5 years from now? Personally I couldn't care less, but this is something that I am sure was a factor in many companies' decision whether to use SL or not.

BTW, you can open a 15 year old html page in any modern browser and will probably work just fine. Check out this 14 year old web page. Works fine except for a few broken links.

EDIT: They arrested Ted Kaczynski?

I think this sums it up: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/11/silverlight-html5-and-microsofts-opaque-development-strategy.ars/

the ars article incrorrectly puts direct2d as a competing technology for wpf and SL though. (they even claim neither actually use d2d whitch is completly incorrect)

i think where SL will shine is apps where perf is important. SL is still ~2x faster than js atleast in this perticular benchmark (running in ie9beta) and with TPL coming to SL it completely owns js from a platform standpoint

for simple* applications and maximum reach though i think html5/js will be the way to go, but as ars points out, it will be a loong time before html5 is as ubiquitous as html4 is today

--edit--

actually ars in partially correct, wpf is not build on d2d, however ars also claimed wpf and sl are not hardware accelerated and that is completly false. All three fully use directx under the covers including dx11 features like DirectWrite where avaiable

And here's the BBC's take on the whole thing.

Mmmm.

@JoshRoss: I'm with ArsTechnica on this one: I can't really see why anyone was surprised by this. I'm sure that Silverlight is very impressive tech, but this kind of proves what many folk have been saying for quite some time: Jobs dictates, MS follows. I didn't really pay any attention to Silverlight because Flash has a greater reach and, without Apple's blessing, I didn't see a long term future for it. 

Muglia said in his blog that it would be impossible for something like Silverlight to target a range of platforms. Really? Adobe seems to have done it. And that leads to another problem: pulling back and circling the wagons around WP7 is okay as a short term solution, but surely it would be much wiser to protect your investment and focus on Flash which is too firmly entrenched for Apple to dislodge entirely (once the other smartphones have Flash support then Jobs will probably have no choice but to allow it onto his iStuff),

This is not really a criticism because I think Microsoft's reasoning is sound. It just sounds like a very much like chapter one of the usual MS tech abandonment story; you know the one: it usually ends with a lot of angry developers and a spokesbod saying, 'We learned a lot from our experience but…'

Why is this such an issue?  In terms of web development then as it currently stands Silverlight should be used in moderation like this site does for the video player.

As for application development then this is where Silverlight makes sense.  Also developers cannot really start using everything HTML 5 has to offer for atleast 5 years.  I like most developers still have to cater for IE6.

Microsoft have this time to tweak their strategy.  I'd also imagine building high performance applications/games with HTML 5 to be a nightmare.  Most the people on this site are used to writing in a compiled language for the many benefits you get.  HTML 5 has alot of catching up to do.  If HTML 5 does take off then i'm sure Microsoft will provide the tools to make working with it as easy as building Silverlight applications and upgrading your applications as simple as possible.

12 hours ago, Ray7 wrote

...

Muglia said in his blog that it would be impossible for something like Silverlight to target a range of platforms. Really? Adobe seems to have done it. 

...

Adobe seems to have done it, but, not very well. Moving forwards it looks like Adobe might target HTML5 as an output. I wouldn't mind having a smaller flash and slivelight plugin that would be ported to anything capable of playing back video, and dedicated exclusiving for that task.

-Josh

@JoshRoss:The Flash Player targets most phone platforms and could run on the iPhone if Apple would allow it. The HTML5 converter is a good idea because it allows Flash developers to target the iPhone without having to rewrite their code. It does remain to be seen how well it works though.

Double