Silverlight Code Name WPF/E . You might have heard the name Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere, or WPF/E. This was the code name under which Microsoft developed Silverlight, in reference to Windows Presentation Foundation, the rich desktop programming framework included in .NET 3.0 and later. Very soon, however, this name was abandoned in favor of the catchier Silverlight . Silverlight is here to stay, and Microsoft is betting a lot on this technology. In these three years, it went from “Flash contender” to major user interface technology. A convergence is occurring between Silverlight and WPF. More and more features are shared. The movement is toward compatibility, with Silverlight becoming a complete subset of WPF. Not just compatibility of interfaces, but also binary compatibility. We will probably see this happening in the next few years.
Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive applications for many screens across the Web, desktop, and mobile devices. Silverlight 5 introduces more than 40 new features, including support for running Silverlight applications with desktop features in the browser, dramatic video quality and performance improvements, and features that improve developer productivity.
Alt ernatives to Silverlight
Adobe Flash - this is the obvious contender, the one technology that is most often mentioned when Silverlight is compared to other frameworks . Adobe Flash is installed on a huge number of computers and various operating systems. It is also a well-known environment, and many companies develop applications in Flash for the Web. As mentioned when Silverlight 2 was released, Flash is not going to be killed by Silverlight, and in fact this was never Microsoft’s intention. Rather, Silverlight provides a welcomed alternative to firms who do not want to invest in two very different technologies for the desktop and the Web. Silverlight and Flash are coexisting on the Web, sometimes even in the same web pages. Thankfully, this is easy to realize, and there is even a possibility to let these mixed applications communicate together through JavaScript. This allows a gradual modification of existing websites from Flash to Silverlight, without breaking the functionalities or forcing the users to adapt to large-scale changes. We actually saw some striking examples of this at Microsoft itself, with existing Flash applications being gradually converted to Silverlight without disruptions.
Java Applets - Java as a plug-in is quite widespread and allows small applications known as applets to run in the web browser. Java was revolutionary in that way when it was released, but it suffers from a lot of issues: . Java is notoriously slow. It’s slow to install on a new computer, and especially slow to start. Java applets have a bad reputation when it comes to security. This claim might not be as true in newer versions as it used to be, but Java’s adoption in the corporate world has suffered a lot from this concern.
Microsoft ActiveX - silverlight differs significantly from ActiveX, and converting existing applications to this new technology is not the easiest task a developer can dream of. With this step, however, you will offer a newer, richer, and much friendlier interface to your users, and make a big step toward the future of software development.
Adobe AIR - For users, AIR applications are known to be heavy in memory consumption, and require an additional framework that must be installed the first time you run an AIR application(even if you have Flash already installed). This can be a problem on corporate networks, where IT departments are often reluctant to install new components on users’ PCs. Silverlight, on the other hand, is installed once and gets the out-of-the-browser capabilities immediately.
HTML5 - this new revision of HTML intends to provide a wide range of rich functionality, allowing developers to reduce the use of third-party plug-ins. In this matter, it positions itself as a concurrent of Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight.Silverlight offers a real alternative.
One important thing to keep in mind is that Silverlight is not a replacement for HTML web pages, and will absolutely not kill HTML. Silverlight is here to enhance your web pages with richer content, and with the out-of-the-browser feature, to create lightweight applications that can function online or offline. Learning Silverlight does not mean that you should avoid writing HTML code, or that you should stop investing in technologies such as ASP.NET. But it means that you can now realize applications that were impossible (or very difficult) to do in HTML/CSS/JavaScript, and that you can use the same languages (and in some cases reuse code) on the server and on the client.
From a security point of view, Silverlight also scores better because you don't really have to worry about common issues such as XSS, CSRF and other vulnerabilities that are common in web-development.
Silverlight can give you animation online, deliver RIAs, stream movies etc (all that Flash and HTML 5 can do), but Silverlight has a lot more to offer. The architecture behind Silverlight I feel is spot on. It mixes both the worlds of Desktop and Web seamlessly, effectively delivering desktop applications (with all their power) via the internet for installation, communication and maintenance. This is very different to HTML 5. Because of this, developers will use Silverlight for business applications, for RIAs that need to do more (integrate, carry out complex functions etc) and all without the reliance on the browser or server doing processing jobs. This reduces testing and ensures a single code base (and that’s how it should be). In addition, you get frequent updates, and full support from Microsoft, which again are good things for real developers.
References
http://sobees.com/web -
Deep Zooming the Matterhorn
Another great way to get involved in the Silverlight community, you can find more information about the Silverlight community at http://silverlight.net/community http://www.galasoft.ch/sl4-twittermvp and http://www.galasoft.ch/sl4-twittermsft
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/
Silverlight Training Course on Channel 9
Silverlight Forums on the Silverlight community site
You can gain more insight by reading the post about Silverlight on these blogs:
Summary
Note the following restrictions:
The Opera web browser is not officially supported at the time of this writing. PowerPC-based Apple computers support only Silverlight 1.0. Cross-Browser and Cross-Platform Compatibility
If you were still hesitating to invest in Silverlight, now is a great time to start.