Drawar

I agree. I wouldn't download to try out their search engine. I couldn't prompt anyone to do it that wasn't in the technology field reviewing it. Why Microsoft decided to re-invent the wheel I have no idea. Not like they don't have 1000 other things they could have done.

Why Microsoft decided to re-invent the wheel I have no idea.

That's their main function.

Ugh. I'm the sole Mac/Adobe user on an otherwise PC/Microsoft-driven organization, and the rest of them been drooling over this. Ignoring the fact that everything they want to do is already available through the Adobe family, they are treating today's release like its a national holiday.

As I have become much less than enamored with Microsoft in recent years and have never been much of an Adobe admirer I think I can look at this rather objectively. That said, your attack on a technology that you've not even evaluated sounds like though doth protest too much. It's hard to take your advice on this topic, and any others when you choose to present such a superficial "my team is better than your team" justification for predicting Silverlight's failure.

Frankly at this point I am still early in forming my opinions on Silverlight. It may be the next big thing on the web or it may become a trivial footnote in the web's history. Sadly though I can say your post added zero insight for me and, if anything, made me more likely to give Silverlight the benefit of the doubt. After all, I've lived through 8+ Rovian years so I've developed quite an allergic reaction to spin-doctoring.

I agree with MikeSchinkel. I've read some impressive reviews of the program including these two on SitePoint.com.

With the performance problems flash is seeing lately I wouldn't write silverlight off completely... but then again, after vista, I have absolutely no faith in microsoft to do anything right anymore. Maybe a few years back.

Microsoft doesn't have the developer support.

WHAT?! If there's one thing Microsoft does do, it's support people developing things on their frameworks. The main .net framework is a prime example. and the support in and around that is infinitely better than Adobe's for Flash and it's derivatives.

Microsoft doesn't have the browser support.

It was released with massive platform and browser support. Give them 10 minutes and they should be supporting 99%.

Microsoft doesn't have the experience.

Writing software or development frameworks and tools?

Microsoft entered a space they know nothing about

Heard of ASPNET?

The only argument for ignoring Silverlight at the moment is the poor install base. That reason evaporates when they push it out as a Windows Update entry.

And ActionScript is a joke of a compared to the .net languages.

You have to remember that all the products you mention when hailing Adobe as the winners (Flash, PDF, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After-Effects and SVG) that they're all creative products. Adobe do make good creative stuff and I'm sure people will keep using Flash to make their little animations. But Silverlight it about getting serious with online applications. If you really want to compare relevant past successes, compare ASPNET and ColdFusion. CF is a joke.

Just wait and see before you call this one.

uh oh... you pissed off the Oli :)

@MikeSchinkel: Who says I haven't worked with it? Unfortunately, I do work with a lot of XAML/WPF. Just haven't played with WPF/E that much. It's just different flavored burritos.

@Oli: Show me some stats on that BS 99% number. Silverlight penetration is like at 2% right now. It hasn't moved that much at all in the past 3 months.

And ASP.NET cannot even come close to comparing to a front-end language. That's like saying someone who codes PHP can write CSs. They know NOTHING of the front-end development space.

ColdFusion has NOTHING to do with this argument. It's completely unrelated to Flex. Sure, Flex supports passing objects to it... but same with J2EE, Ruby and even .NET.

I am talking about front-end development, not back end development

Show me some stats on that BS 99% number. Silverlight penetration is like at 2% right now.

Slow down. You're merging my sentences together as you read them.

I said give them 10 minutes to get 99% browser/platform support and wait for when Silverlight hits Windows Update for muchos installios.

They know NOTHING of the front-end development space.

Heavens! I wonder who made Windows and all the other desktop applications that say they're released by Microsoft.

They actually have quite a head-start against most companies when it comes to app development.

ColdFusion has NOTHING to do with this argument. It's completely unrelated to Flex. Sure, Flex supports passing objects to it... but same with J2EE, Ruby and even .NET.

I was comparing the only two relevant technologies you can compare between Flex and Silverlight... The two main webapp techs owned by each company.

If you know the history of either, you'll know it's also pretty relevant to developer support. Macromedia dropped the ball and Adobe burst it when they acquired MM.

Sorry but MS do make pretty damned good application development tools. I don't see why you expect that to change because it runs through a plug-in in your browser rather than a framework installed on your PC.

I'm no Microsoft Fanboy. "or BGBB (Bill Gates Butt Boy)"
But Oli is dead right in the fact the Microsoft supports it's developers. It's one of the things they do best. Apple has looked at what they do and has started to emulate it in its own efforts to support its own developers and to move some people from the C++ camp to the Objective C camp.

Microsoft offers killer development environments and .net brings a lot of traditional non web programming languages to the web party. Adobe will feel heat from Silverlight because there are a ton more Microsoft Developers in various languages than there will ever be Flex developers. So who will win? Who knows. But it will be fun to watch.

@sjslovechild: That's not the point. Silverlight doesn't offer support for C#, or VB, or VC++. It offers support for Javascript (as supported by the browser) and XAML. Those are very different than the environments currently powering WPF/XAML (C# for the most part with some VB now and then).

@Oli: I'd love to point out the flaws in your arguments... but quite honestly, it's extremely apparent to me that you've not developed with Flex. I'm not sure much more needs to be said with that.

Even with MS pushing Silverlight on all it's computers -- it doesn't phase me. IE7 was about as mandatory an update as possible -- yet it's penetration is still less than IE6. MS's only hope for true penetration is by locking up valuable content (i.e. the Halo 3 gameguide).