I have actually been using Silverlight since it came out. I think it's features are great.

I'm being .NET developer for a couple of years now, .NET is really cool even if the ideas are over 10 years old coming from Web Objects/NEXTStep. Microsoft is losing its edge and it really shows in Vista. .NET 3.5 hasn't much advantage and LINQ is half baked at best. While these Iron projects like IronRuby and IronPyton to move developers over also said something about .NET. There is no perfect solution .NET is great for building rapid business solutions. Linux based CMS like Joomla and Drupal are fanastic. While Ruby and Rails amazingly quick to develop database apps.

I just wish there was more Christian developers who took a serious and more overall view. This is one of the reason I switch to a Mac platform as you have the best of both with Parallels/VMWare, Ruby, LAMP, Web Object, Xcode and iPhone SDK!

Anyway I reckon Adobe Flex has the advantage over Silverlight, as Flex is built into the Flash Plugin. I just can't see Silverlight doing it. Also HTML 5 is around the corner.

It's good to learn and I encourage you, as you know we have a God who is a creator!

Anyway my two cents.

Check out Adobe's Labs

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/samples/n...rk_monitor.html

Gavin

http://blog.i386.com

Well we had Microsoft in today to talk about mainly about Silverlight and XNA, and some other stuff like their Surface. Once again Silverlight looked very promising. One advantage of going was we all got given some free windows webspace to play with!

One thing I had always wondered is how much Silverlight is really competing with Flash. It seems that Silverlight 1 isn't really any better than Flash. Something I hadn't realised is v1 is programmed in Javascript. Version 2 is coming out (there's a beta of it atm), which is programmed in any .NET language. They demonstrated how much faster this was than javascript. But I think this makes it seriously cool (as I think .NET is cool /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />).

Take a look at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/200...verlight-2.aspx if you are interested.

Silverlight is a direct shot at Adobe for RIA's.

The advantage Silverlight 2 has over Flex/Flash is the use of .NET.

Since many business already have developers working with C# or VB.NET, getting up and running with Silverlight 2 will be much faster.

The turn around time for apps thus be faster than with Flex/Flash.

Then with corporations driving the plugin, adoption should ramp up.

Just my .02 on the next stage of the "software wars"

I personally really like javascript as a language. It's prototyping is very cool once you get your mind off of OO.

I spent a couple days to learn AS3 and thought it was alright. Better than C but I still prefer loose typing over strong. If only AS3 wasn't so tied to classes it could be really cool.
(how's that for three seemingly disjointed statements /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" /> )

I haven't looked at silverlight at all really because I don't use microsoft products but it looks cool because I would be able to use ironpython.

That's mainly all I use at work unless I'm asked to do some AS stuff for the "web" designer. /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

Javascript isn't a "bad" language, I'm just personally more comfortable in VB.NET.

But these days folks gotta know just more than on language.

Nature of the beast at the moment.

We can only hope that its going to be cheaper then flash, if its going to compete. Because basically flash is largely overpriced, if its cheaper and works cross-browser, then sure I'd use it. But otherwise, no way. At Least not if its up to me!

Not because i dislike microsoft, but because I'm tired with the overpriced development solutions, and excuses of alternative versions they present, such as their express version of virtual studio.

I haven't even bothered to install silverlight yet, and i sure won't until its absolutely required to use windows update or similar sites.

BlueBoden, you should have a look at the free Flex software:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/flexdownloads/
(Flex is probably a fairer comparison to Silverlight than Flash)

I've done a lot of work with Visual Studio, and also with other proprietary IDEs. If you ever have to use the one I'm thinking about but can't mention (and you won't), you will really appreciate just how powerful VS is! And I don't think you can call it overpriced unless you aren't using it for what it is intended for. If you're a student, you can get it for free!.

I work for local government, Microsoft has been pushing silver light a lot. I might need to learn it. I am glad that I have an MSDN pack!!!

I'd be surprised if Microsoft charged for Silverlight in the future.

Microsoft is also in transition on what they are going to do with the Expression Suite... MSDN subscribers initially were denied access to those tools, and then Microsoft changed that once they realized that WPF designers were rather limited with what Visual Studio did natively.

As for Silverlight specifically, they have released it as a Visual Studio add-on. Silverlight 2.0 is the only one I've bothered to install and play with. In a nutshell, it allows a .NET developer to build a Flash-compatible app. Since this is just a different target for the compile, I don't think they would charge for this, especially since they're trying to stake out the RIA space.

From what I have read Silverlight is pretty nice. Flash had gotten to the same place as IE had with it's dominance. I think this caused a lack of innovation. Silverlight has done some nice things and will hopefully make for a less monopolistic market with a winner being us... the consumer.

BlueBoden, you should have a look at the free Flex software:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/flexdownloads/
(Flex is probably a fairer comparison to Silverlight than Flash)

Silverlight is, IMHO, a combination of Flex & Flash. As I posted in CWM, Silverlight is a direct shot at Adobe for the RIA market. The only "hurdle" MS has to overcome is getting people to install the Silverlight plug-in. Most corporations have MS developers who can get up to speed more quickly developing apps for Silverlight than Flex/Flash, IMHO. Then with corporations driving the plug-in being installed for the apps they create, adoption should ramp up. I can also see the plug-in getting installed by default on Vista (and later Win 7) machines.

I have yet to see any Flex ID that's free. The SDK appears to be free but the Flex Builder is only a 60 day trial.

However, Microsoft has truly free stuff out there to get someone started on Silverlight:
http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/

The preceding is just my .02 on the next stage of the "software wars".

I actually like silverlight. Microsoft has some some really cool stuff there. I'm impressed.

But, and there is a mighty big but. There will be a large adoption problem. Many of the largest corporations are still using IE6. Many are a version behind in flash but it's installed. The largest corporations outsource their IT to companies like CSC who seem to be in no hurry to change. The adoption and change rate at these companies is larger than you'd expect. I mean they are still using IE6.

This is going to hurt silverlight adoption. MS will have to be in it for the long haul. I hope they go after the consumer market and really get interest in it. I hope they stay in it for the long haul. The winner will be the consumer.

"I actually like silverlight. Microsoft has some some really cool stuff there. I'm impressed."
I am too, but I'm more impressed w/the 2.0 stuff.

"But, and there is a mighty big but. There will be a large adoption problem. Many of the largest corporations are still using IE6. Many are a version behind in flash but it's installed. The largest corporations outsource their IT to companies like CSC who seem to be in no hurry to change. The adoption and change rate at these companies is larger than you'd expect. I mean they are still using IE6."
Not to sound like a horses rear, but do you have a source for that? I'm a journalism grad and I'm big on sources when "stats" and "info" is made. Plus it helps me make a case for my supervisors at work when I push for new "toys". :)

From my experience, companies today have moved more to IE 7 and looking at my website logs, IE 7 is out pacing IE 6 quite well. I can see people not updating the Flash player as often as the Silverlight player.

"This is going to hurt silverlight adoption. MS will have to be in it for the long haul. I hope they go after the consumer market and really get interest in it. I hope they stay in it for the long haul. The winner will be the consumer."
I 100% believe MS is in it for the "long haul". Gates made a mistake long ago with his negative comment about the web/net. I think MS has seen the light (no pun intended) and is going right at the RIA area, hard. I totally agree more competition in the area will be better for consumers as well as developers.

The actual statistics on usage can be difficult to gauge and a worthless argument to get into. Suffice it to say a lot of users are still on IE6 and many of them are corporate users. (Note: MS did push down IE7 to their users. So, you have to opt out of getting it, not be installing their updates, or in an environment where a middle man does the update installs... like big corps)..

For starters I work for a fortune 100 company using IE6 all over the place. I, also, know others at other large organizations and other fortune 500 companies who complain about being stuck using IE6. So, part of this is personal experience and dealing with other who have this.

I've, also, spoken with people at CSC and EDS who deal with desktop apps. They are still using IE6 for a lot of their customers and they support a lot of people.

Going beyond that here are some stat sites that give some insight on browser version:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

IE6 still has a lot of usage.

Even more telling is the wikipedia post on IE6 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_6. It notes "A Survey found 55.2% of companies still use IE 6 as of December 2007", while "IE 7 only has a 23.4 percent adoption rate"

I work at a .edu and we still install IE6 default with Windows images. It is sad for new web dev, but some of our enterprise app work best in IE6. That is starting to change and our users have the option to update to IE7 as long as the apps they run are supported. Yes.. it is messy.

I'm surprised there is no campaign to update away from IE6. If there is one it's not big enough I've ever herd of it.