Silverlight vs HTML5

Last week at the Microsoft PDC Conference, Bob Muglia said "our strategy has shifted" has caused some waves in the industry.

The following article is a response. I have taken the time to translate it. please correct me.

 

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It has been a wild weekend for sure. a slew of important announcements at PDC, sudden withdrawal of all Silverlight sessions, Bob Muglia's statement about Microsoft's change in plans, the uptake from journalists, the community uproar... A comedy of errors was unfolding in the technology space while I was happily spending my weekend enjoying my kid's birthday and not thinking about Dev platforms.

 

This is indeed a crazy weekend. There are a lot of important news on PDC, including the sudden cancellation of almost all Silverlight courses, as well as Bob Muglia's news about Microsoft's planned changes to Silverlight, the news raised a storm in the community. There was a black humor, and I was celebrating my children's birthday, but I didn't pay attention to it.

 

So, I come in the office today and my inbox is blinking like crazy, mails from a ton of people from inside the company and out and the common question is-what are you/we doing with Silverlight? Is this the beginning of the end? Are we going to abandon Silverlight now that it was declared dead? Is HTML5 the future of web development?

 

When I got back to the office, my mailbox flashed wildly, and countless people from inside and outside the company sent me emails. What should we do? Is that the end of Silverlight? Do we have to give up Silverlight now or wait for its death? Is HTML5 the future of web development?

In short-we love Silverlight, our customers love it and we don't see it dying, nor will we abandon it. Silverlight might benefit from some

Improvements, but is not dead and will not die that easily. it might not be the "Premier" UI Technology of Microsoft (whatever that means, I never really understood that message) but it will thrive in your types of applications. perhaps Microsoft raised the expectations too high when they announced Silverlight a few years ago and its benefits were blown out of proportion. I guess should people expected that there wocould be nothing but Silverlight.

 

In short, we love Silverlight, and our customers love it. We don't want to watch this technology die or give up on it. Silverlight may require more improvements, but Silverlight will not die or be so easy to die. Silverlight may not be Microsoft's first UI rendering technology, but it will continue to flourish. When Microsoft launched the Silverlight technology several years ago, it may have high expectations and exaggerated some advantages.

 

Just like now I am defending Silverlight and building a case for it, back then I was building a case for HTML and JavaScript. when people were trying to convince me that flash and Silverlight will dominate the world and that HTML will disappear. thing is, HTML is like winforms. it will be around till the end of the world. it implements ved and is coming back stronger than before. I believe the same will happen with Silverlight. we'll see, time will tell. while Microsoft has marginalized versions of its own "children" in the past, it has also changed its initial course written times based on market/community pressure.

 

Just as I am relying on Silverlight to build some Web applications, I used to use HTML and Javascript. Many people told me that flash and Silverlight will govern the whole world and HTML will disappear. However, the fact is that HTML, like winform, will survive until now and become more robust. I believe that the same thing will happen to Silverlight. We can see that time will prove everything. Although Microsoft has also marginalized many of its own technologies, he has also made many changes to the topics set on PDC due to market or community pressure.

 

While you coshould argue forever who is going to "win, "I don't really understand why people put HTML5 and Silverlight in the same basket and don't separate the future of Silverlight from the Future of the Internet. in a way, it feels like people talking about a championship clash between New York Yankees and Manchester United. true, both teams play sports, both of them are great,... They don't compete in the same sport. So it's kinda 'difficult for them to have a face-off so that you have a clear winner.

 

You may have to argue who is the final winner. I really don't understand why people oppose Silverlight and HTML5, rather than separating the future of Silverlight from the Future of the Internet. In other words, just as people are discussing who the New York Yankees team and Manchester United are really champions, they are indeed sports teams and are outstanding, but they cannot be compared in a project, it is impossible to hold a competition to determine a more outstanding champion.

 

This brings me to my main point-Yankees fans do not want to watch another sport when their favorite baseball team is playing (the same applies to Man Utd soccer fans) any more than developers want to use another technology when they like the one they're using. HTML5 and Silverlight may both be development platforms, but they have very different approaches and they appeal to different audiences, hence they don't really "compete" for the same championship.

 

This is my main point of view: fans of the Yankees team do not want to see their team go to a game other than a baseball, and the same is true for Manchester United fans. Developers will also select appropriate technologies based on actual scenarios. HTML5 and Silverlight are both basic development platforms, but they will use different methods to attract different audiences, because they are not competing for the same champion.

 

I hope you are not shocked! That's what our data shows-web Devs never picked up Silverlight as their platform of choice. they always stayed close to what they felt most comfortable with-JS, HTML, CSS, Ajax. sure, they suffered from cross-browser issues due to the fact that every browser has its take on how "standard" features shocould be implemented, but they stayed true to pure web development and never embraced flash or Silverlight.

 

I hope you will not be shaken. Web developers will never choose Silverlight as their development platform. They will also choose JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and Ajax that are very familiar and comfortable. Despite the fact that many browsers are not completely consistent in standards, they suffer from the difficulties of multiple browsers, but they will continue to stay on the pure web development platform rather than Silverlight.

 

On the other hand, our data shows that Silverlight appeals mostly to people coming from the winforms world. for them, it's the transition from winforms to the next-generation world. silverlight might be the super media platform, but most of our MERs are not using it for that and don't appreciate it for the HD streaming. these people were doing winforms development and were looking for ways Enjoy richer functionality and simpler deployment of the backbone apps of their organizations. They found the silver bullet and saw the light! With the blossoming of Silverlight, I think we finally get the best of both worlds when it comes to lob-the ubiquity of the browser, the rich experience, the online and offline scenarios, and the great versions and tooling (well, that's as of recently and we cocould definitely use some improvements ).

 

From another perspective, data display Silverlight attracts more developers in the winform world. For them, this is only a change from winform to the next generation Client technology. Silverlight may be a very good multimedia platform that supports HD video, but most users do not use it based on this. They are still developing winform, and they are looking forward to finding an application development platform with rich features and easy release for their organization. They discovered the "silver arrow", a dazzling Silverlight. I think we will eventually get a rich experience, support for online and offline scenarios, multi-language support, and so on.

 

Further, I don't think that you can build with HTML what you can build with Silverlight with the same effort. You can build amazing stuff with any

Technology if you are a great developer and you know the domain. the real problem, and hence test, for any developer technology is how easily it enables less experienced Devs to deliver amazing results. in my opinion, Sl's threshold is pretty low and it has the best cost/value, especially when you are talking about internal applications of medium size and complexity and up.

 

In addition, I don't think that using HTML at the same investment can build something the same as using Silverlight. If you are a good developer and you are familiar with this field, you can use any technology to build amazing works. The actual problem is that for any technology, we need to check whether experienced developers make excellent works. In my opinion, the threshold for Sl is quite low, with the best cost-value ratio, especially when you are working on medium-scale applications within the company.

 

Silverlight will become dead if and only the hundreds of thousands or millions of Devs who are doing desktop apps today decide that writing Javascript is cool and that they can achieve more with HTML5-capable browsers, tooling and platforms than with Silverlight or some other similar technology. I honestly don't see that happening, though, and believe in the merits of SL when it comes to development of heavy-duty lob apps for the enterprise.

 

If hundreds of thousands or millions of desktop application developers decide that JavaScript writing is cool today, HTML can be better compatible with browsers, if there are better tools and platform support, Silverlight will indeed die. However, I did not see this situation, and I believe that, based on the advantages of Silverlight, Silverlight will enter a wide range of enterprise-level applications.

 

As a short summary-Have no fear, dear MERs. we plan to continue investing heavily in both HTML5/CSS and Silverlight; stay tuned to our Silverlight team blog for regular roadmap updates. you know you can count on telerik to follow the latest development trends and your needs. last week we introduced Windows Phone 7 Suite (1st in industry !) And you can be assured we will be there for you for HTML5, too (stay tuned to telerik blogs for more on that soon ). we will not "retire" WPF or winforms; just see what we are delivering to you next week with the Q3 2010 release (WPF, winforms ). we are an infrastructure provider so whatever the market needs, that we will deliver. we believe that customers shocould be the ones to decide what to use and when. our responsibility, and business, is to provide them with the absolutely best

Tools no matter whether we get tail of headwind from Microsoft and we will stay committed to everything we have started.

 

In a short summary, dear customer, you don't have to worry about it. We will also focus on HTML5, CSS, and Silverlight. Continue to follow our Silverlight blog, and you will be able to know that we will continue to track the latest technical progress.

 

And a closing word of advice-Choose your tools based on your skillset and your company's needs rather than on emotions based on mass hysteria.

 

Finally, I would like to provide a suggestion: based on your experience and company needs, you should choose technology instead of relying on feeling, or even hysterical feeling.

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The reference to infoq should be: Silverlight for the client and HTML5 for the web.