What is Silverlight and why do we need it?

Monday, April 16, 2012 | AKRAMUZZAMAN at 12:24 PM |

What is Silverlight and why do we need it?

It is becoming increasingly common to find a message suddenly appears on our screens, urging us to install Microsoft® Silverlight® when browsing through websites, and in particular, when we are visiting sites owned by Microsoft. But, many of us are still unsure what Silverlight is, why we need to install it just to look at websites, and how it can be used to enhance our own website content and take it to the next level in technological advancement.
Silverlight is a cross-platform, cross-browser, and cross-device free plug-in tool that provide .NET based media capabilities and lavish web-based interactive applications. Silverlight combines various technologies into one development platform, so that developers are able to select the programming language and specific tools that they require. It provides a perfect platform to develop both client-side internal interactive business applications for the web, iPhones and desktop. Another superb feature of Silverlight is that it is designed to complement already existing functionality by integrating seamlessly with any existing JavaScript or ASP.NET AJAX code.
For those of you who do not need to understand all the technical jargon about Silverlight, without it, you may miss out on the latest cutting edge user interface experiences that websites have to offer. For example, sites often opt to personalize their sites with the use of interviews and testimonials, and have used Silverlight to provide high-definition video streamed talks on demand.

• Silverlight provides the same sandbox environment on the user’s computer (commonly referred to as ‘offline’) as within the browser. Unlike other applications that offer similar functionality, Silverlight applications do not need elevated privileges to be launched, therefore ensuring a more secure environment.
  
• Silverlight addresses the constraints of remote data access, whereby Ajax and Silverlight applications can retrieve remote data that will be provided in the default JSON format.
  
  
  

  Should I use HTML5 or Silverlight? One man's opinion.

  I was in Belgium and The Netherlands this last week presenting and talking to folks in the community. After I presented on ASP.NET MVC 3, HTML5 and jQuery, one fellow came up after and said, "Should I use Silverlight or HTML5. I don't understand what Microsoft's strategy is or what to use in my app."
  Since I work for the Web Platform and Tools team (ASP.NET, IIS, etc) I spend a lot of time working, coding, and thinking about the web. However, I'm not an official strategist, or marketing guy.  But I do have an opinion; one that is mine and no one else's.
  That said, I don't think it's that hard and I'm surprised there's so much confusion about this (both outside and inside Microsoft.)  Companies have their official positions but then there's the realities of the web. Here's what the young man asked me and what I told him.
  NOTE: I'm talking only about Silverlight in web browsers, not Silverlight for Phone, Games, Out of Browser, High Trust, and other environments that are uniquely Silverlighty.
  

  Should I use HTML5 or Silverlight in my Applications? If you're embracing jQuery, where does Silverlight fit in?

  Even though browsers like Chrome release and update very often, not every company is going to upgrade all their browsers every week or even twice a year. Some enterprises will be on Firefox 3.6 for a while longer, or (hopefully not) IE6. Browser plugins like Silverlight and Flash can add new functionality faster. They are called plugins for a reason. They plug-in and add something.
  HTML5 isn't 100% done, but today it's already a collection of things that can be used now. Your web apps should use techniques like progressive enhancement to detect available features. As newer browsers include useful features like geolocation and video that used to require plugins, then older plugins become unnecessary. Plugins rev and add new more advanced features like DVR-like video and hardware-accelerated 3D. Those features will eventually find their way into browsers in a few years and the cycle will continue.
  Silverlight 5 will become Silverlight 6, Flash 10 will become Flash 11 and HTML5 will become HTML6. Each new spec will add new features, innovating, and pushing the others forward . The web will be pushed forward by all these and more.
  There's no question that advanced media apps, 3d, DVR video scenarios shine on Silverlight. Silverlight CAN do some things that HTML5 can't.
  If you are creating an application for the web that needs images, links and text boxes, some animations and interactivity, there's no reason you shouldn't use HTML. With new JavaScript libraries like Modernizr, jQuery along with Polyfills, you can even use many HTML5 features and still have good functionality on ALL major browsers - not just the most recent generation.
  If your application is internal or a line of business app and is what I call a basic "text boxes over data" application, you have a few choices. You can certainly use Silverlight and its databinding features, or you can use JavaScript libraries like KnockoutJS and write it in HTML. It depends on where you and your company's core skillset lies. Both are good choices and both aren't going anywhere.
  
  
  
  

  When Should You Use Silverlight?

  There’s been a lot of talk recently about Silverlight – in particular comparisons to HTML (JavaScript/CSS). Unfortunately a lot of these comparisons come down a catfight over whether one is better than the other. The truth, of course, is that both have their place and the challenge is in fact deciding when to use one technology set over another.
  Simone believes Silverlight is limited to desktop, Windows Phone 7 and niche extensions to traditional web applications. Despite his (IMHO false) assertion that HTML/JS/CSS can do almost as much as Silverlight (deserves a separate post to address this wildly inflated claim – come on Simone!) – I actually agree with his definition – however, I would further comment that the “desktop” is not the same as it was when we all wrote VB apps and installed them on our user’s (Windows only) desktops, one MSI at a time! The new desktop now covers, mobiles, televisions, Windows & Mac desktops, Xbox and are growing markets that Silverlight is in a great position to make an impact in.
  So I decided to write down the scenarios that I believe might compel you to choose Silverlight. Not in any particular order,
  
• You need the power of the desktop but delivery of the web – historically the rise in popularity of HTML based applications was driven by the easy in which applications could be updated and distributed. Simply update a few files on your web server and auto-magically your clients had the latest version. Silverlight gives you this same power and in addition your users can control whether/when they upgrade. Technologies like MEF and Prism also allow you to modularize your applications to allow for selective downloads/upgrades depending on a user’s permissions.
• In fact, I’d argue that Silverlight out-of browser with elevated privileges is where it becomes a completely different beast to HTML applications. If also raises the question of when does Silverlight become WPF or perhaps more importantly when do we stop seeing them as different technologies and start talking about XAML applications that can target either the desktop or browser, share a common set of assemblies, but depending on the target can reference specialised enhancement assemblies.