If you keep listening, you'll learn a (former) insider's view on who's off the project, that the team is dispersed, etc.

Probably an idiosyncratic take, but combined with the inattention of MS to Silverlight, seems to make sense.

Yes, I had second thoughts about the quote I used. But the article is well-informed (in addition to being profane, appealing to emotion, and to the writer's, let's say, having been around the block once or twice with...web frameworks).

I have to agree. I can understand if this thread was on reddit, but its disappointing to see this in HN.

That aside, isn't this a good thing that Windows 8 now doesn't care (at least, for the new Metro apps) what runtime you're targeting - Silverlight, .Net (full CLR) or Native? - all apps irrespective of whether it was developed in C++, C# or VB with XAML or JS with Html - they're targeted to run in the Windows runtime. For Silverlight developers, they can continue to use XAML for developing their UI's, but yes, they would have learn about the new/different UI controls for the metro style, but that's not the same as learning a completely different language.

Windows Runtime documentation - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh46494...

Edit - Added WinRT link

That's a quote from the video.

To me the real value in that post is this paragraph...

Reactions? “The web just got richer.” Well, somebody’s getting richer, but I doubt it’s gonna be the web. And did you hear the news? You’ll write it one time, and test it one time (for real this time, we promise). And Microsoft “rebooted the web.” I guess that’s all you can do after freezing up for five years. Hey, look over there, shiny objects! That poster may as well be titled “Fucked 6 Ways From Sunday,” because that’s what you’ll be if you buy into any of this.

Really puts today's rave reviews of Windows 8 in perspective (which is just what he says in the video)

Mostly a captive market of Microsoft-oriented devs with invested skills in C#/VB, and an ability to push out a client install package through Windows update.

Having developed against both, I found Silverlight development much easier than Flash development. It makes the most sense for enterprise/corporate/internal applications, where end-client availability is much more controlled.

But outside the firewall, Flash is certainly good enough.

Because Flash is not good enough. Flash video playback has an incredibly poor performance, especially with h264 or HD videos, even on average machines or Macs. Silverlight video playback is simply a lot smoother. I'm not sure if it's their codecs or somewhere else in their rendering pipeline, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. What matters is that my users can play back the videos on my site smoothly even on their shitty commodity Dell boxes.

That being said, I'd love to switch to HTML5. If only all the browsers settled on the same codec.

I know a lot of folks who used it to stream video mostly just because it supported PlayReady DRM. I'm not saying thats the right reason but thats one reason for choosing it over Flash. Netflix used (uses?) it for their web streaming.

Your quip about these plugins being used 98% for video is spot on. I think Flash has served its purpose and should go away now, but it definitely did a good job of kickstarting decent in-browser video in the 2000s.

P.S. Also, MS was too scared to use IE to push forward an in-browser silverlight as a thorough AJAX competitor, as google might end up doing with dash.

I loaded it on a desktop and saw 10 seconds of his intro and then it switched to a commercial. The internet is completely going to shit.

I suspect that has to do with corporations. I've had nothing but problems with Java's auto update and I don't want to give users administrative access just to update their Java. So I either had to have someone go around every update and do it manually or have the user put up with a little bubble popping up every few hours. So I just uninstalled the whole thing and only gave it to those who notice it was missing.

And no one's noticed yet.

A lot of people prefer their own projects to their day job because it's their code. My day job is C# and WPF but love working with JS and HTML. Don't get me wrong JS can be terrible, but my guess is Sass and Coffee will both work with the new Win8 stuff.

I for one am thankful that Netflix uses Silverlight. For one thing, it doesn't seem plagued with 0-day exploits all the time, doesn't want to update itself every other day, and crashes a hell of a lot less on my Mac than Flash does.

I'd be ok if MSFT won this one.

WotC uses Silverlight for their online D&D 'Character Builder' -- it is effectively a core product along with the standard rule books. (PHB, DMB, MM)

Tis somewhat niche, but D&D is king of that particular niche.

Lots of banks use it for internal software. Also, isn't it what we are all supposed to be using to develop Windows Phone Apps?

I'm not sure what's current, but in the past I remember hearing that the streaming Olympics, NCAA tournament, and (2008) presidential debates all used Silverlight.

NBC used it for the Olympics a couple years ago.

MS years ago was getting worried Adobe was inching into the cross platform space (remember Netscape Navigator?), putting a final nail into its Windows franchise. Therefore it launched its own plugin initially called WPFe, which runs a tiny CLR (about 5Mb) with a subset of WPF, targetting WinXP and up plus MacOS. It is based around scenegraphs rather than Repaint(), and promises to make application design more designer friendly.

All this changed when MS realized that Windows has already lost. The web, where we live today, is already cross platform.

Meanwhile, the now-named Silverlight isn't attracting the right developers/desingers - Adobe tools still retains people who love UI design, while Windows developers are primarily still trapped in the WIMP mindset.

Secondly, Apple showed MS that cross platform wasn't necessarily a threat. The threat today is a device that can browse the web and perhaps run some native apps. The cross platform adoption never really took off. Flash based games continue to dominate. Mac aficionados never liked Silverlight. Android tablets don't run Silverlight, and why would MS want to help a competitor anyway?

Meanwhile, the original stable of enterprise customers started using Silverlight in their enterprise apps, citing simpler deployment. In Silverlight 5, MS has finally admitted more Windows specific features like PInvoke, COM automation - all this is enterprise related.

So today, Silverlight never achieved its original cross platform promise, it never achieved consumer adoption, it didn't attract (enough) developers who made beautiful apps, Apple is decidedly against other runtimes running on their newly established beachheads in the iPads. Sales growth of non-PC devices outpaced PC sales. If you include devices (smartphones, slates), MS has already lost its dominance. Plus with ARM devices continuing to get more powerful - there is no future left for a tiny, portable CLR.

Windows 8 is using HTML5/Javascript for at least part of the interface instead of WPF/Silverlight. .Net developers had a tizz a few months ago about it on very few facts, the developer preview of Win 8 was released today so the facts are beginning to emerge. If Win 8 is using HTML5/javascript, one wonders how long the phone OS takes to follow suit.

I'm not entirely sure the extent of where you can use HTML5/javascript as I've not got a chance to watch the launch video yet as ironically Silverlight kept crashing and killing Chrome every time I tried.

But that's the context I watched that with.

The comparison isn't valid. I can compile "hello.c" and run it on multiple platforms. But will it work with existing production code? There are Silverlight specific libraries, for example.

Haven't they already begun testing html5 for Linux support?