Are You Ready for Silverlight 2?
During the Olympics, Microsoft's Silverlight technology was installed on over 20 million computers. Oprah uses Silverlight and Microsoft has partnered with HP to have Silverlight shipped on HP computers in the future. Microsoft seemed dedicated to spreading Silverlight 1 as far as possible this year.
Now rumors are swirling that Microsoft may be ready to release Silverlight 2 as early as next Monday.
ETA: Monday, October 13, 9 a.m. PT
Due to a press release about a conference call to be given by Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of the .NET Developer Division, rumors are swirling that Microsoft will be releasing Silverlight 2 as early as next Monday. Guthrie noted that Microsoft will make "a significant announcement related to Microsoft Silverlight," next Monday at 9 a.m. PT. It seems more than likely that the rumors could be true. A developer SDK for Silverlight 2 has already been sent out and Silverlight 2 Beta 2 was released months ago. Looks like Silverlight 2 might be ready to use.
Timetables and Changes
If the rumors are true, this would mean the timetable release for Silverlight 2 was a little off. It was expected by the Summer and it's clearly Fall right now. Nevertheless, a list of upcoming changes has been published, which will be important for developers using Silverlight to review.
However, none of these changes will be important if many don't use Silverlight or develop applications for the platform. So to the developers we ask, how are excited are you about Silverlight 2?
Comments
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There she goes :)
Posted by: Rah™
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October 11, 2008 10:54 AM
Ready!
I am very excited about the general availability of Silverlight 2. Putting all the anti-Microsoft FUD aside, it offers a much more compelling development platform than Flex or Ajax (though Microsoft's jQuery announcement last week was great to hear). Anyone who says otherwise simply has not spent any time working with the platform. Also, the dynamic language capabilities (for instance Ruby and Python) that the DLR (in Silverlight 2) will bring to the client side is a good thing for everyone. Couple that with the Moolight project and you have somehting that people should be very excited about.
I must say that Microsoft need to open up for linux..so no i am not ready for Silverlight...since i am using Linux...
A webbproduct SHOULD be avaiable for all OS..
Bengt - you haven't been following the story here - there is a Linux implementation in the works - open source and all - please see http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight2Hacking
If you are a developer interested in seeing this on Linux, perhaps you should, in the spirit of Linux, contribute to the project or ona more macro level to the Mono project.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
I submit the following nightmare for your consideration...
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/10/wal-mart-will-c.html
That's all I have to say on this.
Silverlight is a home run for Microsoft. The ability it offers to build dynamic applications has a lot of power. Personally I see it changing a lot of the way web applications are developed and the second version is only going to help drive this.
Microsoft should give this up. Flash/Flex is a much better platform and already has 95%+ penetration.
Jason Kiesel
Founder & CEO
http://www.freedomspeaks.com
Been ready for a while.
Believe what you will, but HTML and AJAX just aren't cut developing true web apps. While Flex is certainly interesting, being able to use .NET and the whole ecosystem that comes with it, simply can not be ignored.
Can't wait for the 2.0 release. The 1.0 is lacking some serious features, and I deeply hope 2.0 will fix that !
So what successful sites are currently using Silverlight?
AnonCoward - WalMart - what does that have to do with this - if you build on Silvelight 2 - and choose DRM - you get Mac and Windows, potentially Linux too via Moonlight.
Warren - what successfuly sites - hmm - v2 isn't even available yet. So, sit tight.
I don't like silverlight, I love flash. Only few site using sliverlight now.
Silver... what? Yet Another Microsoft push to go after which they've forgot completely - who uses ActiveX?
Where is Windows Streaming now? Why everybody else uses Flash for video? There is a reason for that.
I am a developer but frankly I don't want to waste my time to learn SilverLight - why? Flash provides great opportunities for video and animations.
AJAX is great for making sites more interactive.
I have yet to be impressed enough with Silverlight. And I'm also not convinced sites (like the NBC Olympics site) will use it over Flash when they are not getting paid to do so by MS. And 10 million downloads? Flash has 850 million...
This is reminiscent of how .NET was going to obliterate J2EE off the map many years ago, and that didn't happen. J2EE is still strong.
I don't fall for MS hype. Sure there are things that SL 2.0 will do better, and there are things that Flash/Flex can do better. The bottom line is that Flash is OUT there, it is installed everywhere and more importantly it is proven. MS and it's fan boys love to scream victory before anything is really proven. With MS track record of rushing crapware out to the market, I'm not buying in.
Unfortunately, I as well as many others will find ourselves in the middle of defending flash at our jobs, since there are many .NET developers in our workplace. They will be all over Silverlight because of the MS "comfort" factor. Actionscript scares these folks, because they think it is the same little toy language from 6 years ago. They hear the word "script" and dismiss it. I have experienced this first hand. I recall a conversation with a lead .NET engineer who heard me use the word "developer" in the same sentence with actionscript. He proceeded to insult me by saying "Actionscript is not a real language, your not developing anything. It is a scripting language". I proceeded to inform this moron about AS3, it's object oriented structure, and what is capable with it. He said, "I didn't know it had come this far"
That said, SL is a threat to Flash, not because it makes sense, but because MS/.NET shops will embrace it.
I spent years as a professional developer using microsoft tech, and I have to say I won't ever get tied up by that crowd again. Think what you will about it, the entire Microsoft dev 'community' is stifled from the ground up.
Being involved in an open source community compared to depending on a big vendor for feature updates? I'll take the friendliness of the community, thanks.
Silverlight--
The Silverlight implementation on Linux - Moonlight - is SL 1.0 only, which is seriously lacking. Adobe has gotten pretty good at sim-shipping Linux releases of Flash Player at the same time as Mac and Windows.
There are plenty of websites out there that are already using Silverlight in its beta form. Go check out WWE, nba.com (when season starts - to watch the game highlights), memorabilia.hardrock.com, uvntv, several microsoft websites (converting from flash to silverlight) and many more.
The olympics website, nbcolympics.com used silverlight to stream live videos this summer. Amazing quality! Here is another huge one: The democrats used silverlight for their convention website and videos (along with move network). See: http://gallery1.demconvention.com/
These websites will have to update soon now as Silverlight 2 is about to be released! :)
i cannot help but shake my had at the quantity of badly informed commenter's in this post.
Head, not had. :P
The Hard Rock site at http://memorabilia.hardrock.com is updated for Silverlight 2 already. All you Silverlight/MS-haters, what do you think?
I use flash than silverlight