Silverlight and Flash/Flex comparison: what's in a name?
Michael Schwarz has an excellent post up on his blog on the Rich Media Platform Comparison. Michael compares 2 a set of features of the Microsoft platforms Silverlight and .NET, versus the Adobe's Flash/Flex platform. Check his blog for an overview table.
While the name "Silverlight" was announced last week, it hasn't essentially changed from what the WPF/E February CTP had on board as features. Silverlight is only the rename for the codename of Microsoft's cross-browser/cross-platform plug-in (WPF/E) for delivering the next generation media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the Web. It's great to see that - for once - Microsoft has a cooler final name that what the codename sounded like.
The components of a Silverlight page are:
- WPF/E Plug-in
- ActiveX control for Internet Explorer
- Traditional plug-in for other browsers
- agHost.js
- Host-independent wrapper for WPF/E plug-in
- HTML and JavaScript
- Import agHost.js and instantiate plug-in
- XAML (inline or not!)
Ever thought were "Ag" in agHost.js comes from? Think about the symbol for silver ...
Here are some other very interesting posts on Silverlight:
- Junior Dev has a user control for Silverlight control instantiations inside a regular .aspx page.
- Forest Key interview [via Scott Barnes]
- Sean Alexander has a series of must-read blogs on Silverlight:
- SilverLight, Microsoft Expression, & Visual Studio bring RIA's to life
- Channel9 video: James Clarke: Creating Silverlight Media with Expression Media Encoder
More developer-related information on the Silverlight platform can be expected at Mix07. After Mix07 we should have a better view on the capabilities of this new platform. Looking forward to be in Las Vegas next week. Countdown has started: 8 days 21 hours 16 minutes to go! Watch this Silverlight community site after Mix07!
Stay tuned!
Technorati tags: Silverlight, WPF/E, Mix07