SillyDog701

[Antony]

Microsoft recently released Silverlight (1.0 Beta), previously known as WPF/E (Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere).

Silverlight is a proprietary technology for animation, vector graphics and video playback. Similar to Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash), the Silverlight runtime is available as a plugin for many browsers and platforms including our beloved Apple Safari on Mac OS X (installation link).

Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, Visual Basic .NET, C#, Python, and Ruby and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight media capabilities include fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality audio and video to all major browsers including Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Windows Internet Explorer running on Mac OS or Microsoft Windows.

For more information about Microsoft Silverlight, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/ and let us know what you think about this product.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3

[Dr Lobster*]

can anybody really see this catching on? i mean we've already got flash and java- what does silverlight do that these others don't?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3

[Don_HH2K]

can anybody really see this catching on? i mean we've already got flash and java- what does silverlight do that these others don't?

The only two selling points for me are that it's 64-bit-compatible (Flash and Java don't have 64-bit plugins so far), and that I know how to code Visual Basic as opposed to ActionScript and Java.

Even at that, since Silverlight is WPF-driven, I'd need to learn XAML in order to use it alongside Visual Basic.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2 x64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070323 BonEcho/2.0.0.3 (mmoy CE K8N-X02)

[Antony]

can anybody really see this catching on? i mean we've already got flash and java- what does silverlight do that these others don't?

Well, nothing much. Perhaps programming in .NET isn't as complicated as programming in Java.

Although the Flash has very high installation and Java has been out for a decade, but the history can repeat, Silverlight might do the same success as Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070309 Firefox/2.0.0.3

[Sonadow]

if they can promise cross-system functionality then i think Sun Java and Adobe Flash will be facing a very tough opponent.

Im quite surprised Microsoft is also releasing it for Mac OS and Linux.

but then knowing MS, they probably just ensure basic support and functionality for Mac and Linux, then develop added functionality for Windows. -.-

if that's going to happen, then i rather stick to java and flash.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070604 Firefox/2.0.0.4 Navigator/9.0b1