If you've haven't heard about Silverlight 2.0 yet, you're probably living in a dark corner of the world. Just in case you need a refresher, you can check some posts about it here, and here, and here, and here, and pretty much any other developer news site.
Silverlight is definitely in the same realm as Flex, but up until now I couldn't see why a developer would ever choose Silverlight. As I worked more and more with WPF, I began to realize that if Microsoft were able to port the power of that framework to the web, it would own the RIA space. It looks as though Silverlight 2.0 has made a major leap in that direction. The pairing of .NET 3.5 and WPF has, in my mind, created the best environment for rich applications that has ever existed. We here at Switch On The Code are eagerly awaiting the release of Beta 1 to see if it's as good as it looks.
There are a lot of additions to Silverlight coming with 2.0, but the one I care about the most is the built-in set of user and layout controls. As much fun as building my own button was, I look forward to having one already built for me. And the grid layout, at least in WPF, is one of the single greatest inventions ever created for Windows development.
Of the posts I linked to in the beginning of this article, you should definitely read the one on ScottGu's blog. It contains an 8 part tutorial for creating a Digg application using the new features in Silverlight 2.0. If you're not familiar with Silverlight in general, we've got a few tutorials that might get you up to speed.
Look forward to lots of tutorials once we get our hands on Silverlight 2.0. According to Microsoft, the public beta is going to available sometime next month.
Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do if they want to own the RIA space. Flex 3 has set the bar very high at this point.
In order to use SilverLight 2 effectively you will probably want to use Blend 2, which so far has been unimpressive IMHO. I cannot even do masked layers in SilverLight using Blend - something that is trivial in Flash and Flex.
Yes the new controls in SilverLight 2 look good but I did notice they are missing a dropdown combobox: http://michaelsync.net/2008/02/26/the-screenshot-of-silverlight-20-beta-1-controls
I'm excited to get my hands on beta 1 of SilverLight 2.0, but... it has a long way to go before I'll say its going to "own" any space - especially at a 4.3 meg download to start off with and no Linux support (sorry Moonlight is not an officially supported project of Microsoft).
I totally agree with what you're saying. I'm not saying Silverlight 2.0 will crush Flex, I'm saying Silverlight 2.0 is moving in the right direction. If the feature set of WPF (which does include a combo box) was all ported to the web, then as a developer, it'd be hard to choose Flex over Silverlight.
If we're adding tools into the equation, yes Blend doesn't compare to Flash - not at all. Flash is one of the best authoring tools out there and I doubt Microsoft will ever be able to make something as good (unless they just buy Adobe). I do like Visual Studio better than Flex Builder though.
I agree that the download is large, but Microsoft has the ability to install it on a very large percentage of web users overnight using their automatic updates.
Microsoft and Novell have a "formal" partnership in producing Moonlight. I don't know whether or not "formal" means "official". I haven't actually heard anything more about that since the article was published.
The lack of the combo box was strange. I'd be surprised if 2.0 makes it all the way to release without it. I'd also like to see something equivalent to the Flex DataGrid (the DataGrid is very nice).
Personally, I'd like to just see Adobe and Microsoft continually trying to one-up each other. Because that means, as developers, we just get more features.
Good points! I'd have to say though I like the Eclipse + Flex Builder experience over Visual Studio, especially VS.NET 2008 which I find to be painfully slow compared to VS.NET 2005 and prior.
As you said Microsoft has the power to put the Silverlight runtime on every Windows desktop out there. The question is: Will they do it? They certainly aren't pushing Silverlight 1.0 very hard. Its an "optional" install on Windows update - which translates to no one installing it willingly. Its not on their Live or MSN sites (I see plenty of Flash content though). I'm not convinced they will really push it onto all the Windows boxes via required updates, etc. It took them years and years before they finally started distributing the VB 4/5/6 runtimes with the OS. Their track record here is not good. Can they do it? Yes, of course. Will they? I don't know. I don't know how serious they are nowadays. They seem to be chasing every stray dog in town in hope of finding one with the secret to success in this new era of the web.
I really think they (Microsoft) have their work cut out for them. And yes, this is great for developers because competition between Adobe and Microsoft is great and will only make each product better. That is until Microsoft forgets about it, like they did with IE for how many years after they won the browser wars.
-Mark
Yeah, those are some great points Mark. I know the The Reddest personally prefers VS2008/2005 mainly because he uses it daily. I myself think both tools have a lot of features.
I really like Flex and the way it is headed especially with recent release of AIR. Microsoft certainly has its work cut out with Silverlight 2.0 but I personally think that they are going to take some large strides here in the very near future. I think that there will be some great stuff coming out at Mix here in the next month. Also Microsoft has the online video setup with NBC which will show all the events online. This is all going to be in Silverlight 2.0 which I think is going to make strides towards getting a nice adoption base.