Has Microsoft got Silverlight Wrong?
Dave Methvin has an interesting article on Silverlight and the Microsoft beta download center. Here’s my view on Dave’s article:
- Given the number of requests (91) made from the Silverlight application, I’d say it’s way too chatty which is definitely hurting performance
- I’m not convinced that a download page needs to be 100% Silverlight/Flash, but I do think Silverlight and Flash have a place on the web other than for video.
- AJAX has done a lot for the performance of Web 2.0 web sites, but there is still a big different to being on a web site, and using a thick desktop application. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) aim to fill the void, bringing both worlds closer together.
- Adobe Flash (Flex) is still in the early stages of maturity. The lack of a decent development environment is to a degree countered with its player install base. Likewise Microsoft Silverlight is 1.0 today, with 2.0 scheduled for sometime this year. With both these products competing for space, we can only expect to see improvements in performance, functionality and the speed at which business solutions can be delivered.
- Whatever the technology for building web applications, there is never going to be a silver built for requiring a performance design/architecture.
- We are at the start of the RIA wave, things are only going to get better, quick and cooler in the coming year
Mix University: Silverlight Training
Once loaded, which is a long time for a single page, it is quicker. Product A-Z is nice and snappy. My issue remains that Silverlight is the domain of specialists and OOP students. I can’t imagine it ever featuring in Netmag because they’d need to run a serial on C# and, well OOP, as a prerequsite. This leaves it out of the home enthusiast market.
One point missing from your analysis, Matt, is that Silverlight is a cross-platform CLR, so without having any Silverlight in the UI, you can still call into it to execute client-side C# and all that that brings with it. If that’s *all* it did I’d still be rolling-it out on the standard build in our bank.