ASP.NET vs Silverlight?

[Artificer]

Any idea if MS will try to promote Silverlight over ASP.NET for web
development or will silverlight remain just as a adobe's flash like
tecnology?

 

[Munna]

Any idea if MS will try to promote Silverlight over ASP.NET for web
development or will silverlight remain just as a adobe's flash like
tecnology?

Hi,

I think

Silverlight is the next generation RIA (Rich internet application)
supporting very developer friendly environment ... more over besides
the powerful support of Graphics device we can write programs with our
favorite c# and xaml...

As for asp.net i think it will remain on track ...

Munna

 

[Cowboy \(Gregory A. Beamer\)]

A bit of both.

There are some applications that will work well with adding a movie (or
similar) in them, ala Flash. Other applications will be better as 100%
Silverlight.

--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP, MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA

Subscribe to my blog
http://gregorybeamer.spaces.live.com/lists/feed.rss

or just read it:
http://gregorybeamer.spaces.live.com/

*************************************************
| Think outside the box!
|
*************************************************

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> Any idea if MS will try to promote Silverlight over ASP.NET for web
!> development or will silverlight remain just as a adobe's flash like tecnology?

I fail to see what Silverlight adds to a data-driven ASP.NET application.

Silverlight is for presenting streaming media and Rich Interactive Applications(RIA) for the web.
If you don't use streaming media...you don't need Silverlight.

Silverlight doesn't require ASP.NET to be used on the web-server.
You could use Silverlight with PHP on Linux if you wanted to.





Juan T. Llibre, asp.net MVP
asp.net faq : http://asp.net.do/faq/
foros de asp.net, en español : http://asp.net.do/foros/
======================================

 

[Anthony Jones]

Any idea if MS will try to promote Silverlight over ASP.NET for web
development or will silverlight remain just as a adobe's flash like
tecnology?

ASP.NET forms may still have a role to play in the public web space where
simple forms are needed. However for more extensive UIs and for intranet
applications I think Silverlight is going to be big, real big.

 

[Anthony Jones]

I hardly think Silverlight will replace ASP.Net, because truly rich applications
can be developed using them in conjunction with each other.

It also needs to be taken into account that most people don't like installing
plugins in their browser, so large scale uptake will be slow.

Personally I would still prefer to do back office applications without
Silverlight. Myself and the other seniors at our company still aren't
particularly thrilled with Silverlight.

Silverlight 2.0 will likely be a big thing, like LINQ to SQL, until people start
using it in enterprise applications and start taking all the extra implications
into account.

I was speaking to the future, I wasn't suggesting that Silverlight is ready
now. However with a stronger control framework a future Silverlight will be
very compelling.

Simply put HTML is just not the right platform to deliver a UI (as opposed
to displaying content). The use of HTML in this way was forced on to users
by IT departments trying to regain control of applications delvered to users
and by woefully inadequate means of centrally managing what is installed on
PCs.

The continued focus of those developing the HTML standard and the related
CSS standard is content delivery with only a secondary nod to UI. The fact
is though that a UI developer wants a much finer control over the
presentation whereas the HTML/CSS committees are going in the other
direction, trying to separate content from presentation.

This means that UI developer often has to wrestle HTML into doing what is
needed. That's not to mention that various browsers don't always interpret
the same HTML/CSS in the same way. Yes ASP.NET does help reduce that
significantly by insulating the developer somewhat but it can never be
complete and it still doesn't fix the fact that the underlying technology
isn't properly suited to the task.

Having a sandbox on the client which has few external dependacies running
code written in C# that does what you ask it to, is over time, going to be
prefered to struggling with HTML based UIs. This is of course an my own
conjectured opinion and depends a great deal on whether a usable control
framework appears in Silverlight.

In the wider world of the public web where, as you say, some users are loath
to install additional components Silverlight may not have as much impact.
It already has established competitors which are fairly ubiquitous.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> Simply put HTML is just not the right platform to deliver a UI (as opposed to displaying content).

If you mean a *Rich User Interface* or *Rich Interactive Applications*,
I agree, but there's a lot of adequate HTML-based UI's on the web now.

If there's a need for visual demonstrations, Silverlight/Flash can't be beat,
and Silverlight certainly does a lot more than Flash does, but for data-driven
online catalogs/shopping carts, and/or any website which doesn't have the
need to visually demonstrate concepts or products, Silverlight/Flash are
overhead-producing overkill.

When it comes to giving clients quick data and purchasing choices,
platforms which deliver HTML to clients, like ASP.NET does,
are much more efficient and quick-loading than either Silverlight or Flash.




Juan T. Llibre, asp.net MVP
asp.net faq : http://asp.net.do/faq/
foros de asp.net, en español : http://asp.net.do/foros/
======================================

 

[Anthony Jones]

re:
!> Simply put HTML is just not the right platform to deliver a UI (as

opposed to displaying content).

If you mean a *Rich User Interface* or *Rich Interactive Applications*,
I agree, but there's a lot of adequate HTML-based UI's on the web now.

We had adequate UIs 10+ years ago in fat client windows apps. As an
industry we haven't served our users well with HTML based UIs. We could
have done a lot better had we not lumbered ourselves with a technology that
is only barely "adequate" and takes quite a lot of effort to produce what
was an absolute breeze to knock up in something like VB3 years and years
ago.

If there's a need for visual demonstrations, Silverlight/Flash can't be beat,
and Silverlight certainly does a lot more than Flash does, but for data-driven
online catalogs/shopping carts, and/or any website which doesn't have the
need to visually demonstrate concepts or products, Silverlight/Flash are
overhead-producing overkill.

Its unfortunate that Silverlight has seen the light of day (pun, sorry) in
such an imcomplete state. Its put the spot light (oops did it agian) on the
sexy stuff of clever media integration and other slick UI gimicks. The
really important message has got lost which is not surprising when the
current version doesn't even do textboxes well. What's important isn't all
that Flash-a-like stuff; it is a .NET Framework in an independant sandbox.

When it comes to giving clients quick data and purchasing choices,
platforms which deliver HTML to clients, like ASP.NET does,
are much more efficient and quick-loading than either Silverlight or Flash.

In the future that I'm talking about the client end of an application will
be _in_ Silverlight and the user will not be navigating to or from a
multiple pages hosting Silverlight.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

I'll agree to the extent that there's a lot of work to be done on Silverlight,
and that its future, if the promise made can be delivered, may be bright.

There's no way that Silverlight can compete in throughput efficiency with ASP.NET, though.

Silverlight is a bandwidth-intensive platform, hardly suitable for business needs.
As far as eye-candy goes, it's alright, though.




Juan T. Llibre, asp.net MVP
asp.net faq : http://asp.net.do/faq/
foros de asp.net, en español : http://asp.net.do/foros/
======================================

 

[Alvin Bruney [ASP.NET MVP]]

search engines just need to evolve. no biggie.

--

Regards,
Alvin Bruney [MVP ASP.NET]

[Shameless Author plug]
The O.W.C. Black Book, 2nd Edition
Exclusively on www.lulu.com/owc $19.99

 

[Anthony Jones]

I'll agree to the extent that there's a lot of work to be done on Silverlight,
and that its future, if the promise made can be delivered, may be bright.

There's no way that Silverlight can compete in throughput efficiency with ASP.NET, though.

I don't understand that statement. Currently I have an ASP.NET / AJAX
developement tuned such that all that needs to pass back between client and
server is the dynamically changing data. All the JS, CSS, XSL and
containing HTML is pretty much served up from the clients local cache.

I can't see any reason why the same can't apply in to a Silverlight app in
the future. In fact it would be quite natural.

Silverlight is a bandwidth-intensive platform, hardly suitable for business needs.
As far as eye-candy goes, it's alright, though.

Yes, currently its potential is clouded by all this 'eye-candy' that is
currently being promoted not least of course by MS because it isn't ready to
do anything else.

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> I can't see any reason why the same can't apply in to a Silverlight app in the future.

Let me know when it's ready.

<chuckle>




Juan T. Llibre, asp.net MVP
asp.net faq : http://asp.net.do/faq/
foros de asp.net, en español : http://asp.net.do/foros/
======================================

 

[Juan T. Llibre]

re:
!> search engines just need to evolve. no biggie.

That's easy for you to say... ;-)




Juan T. Llibre, asp.net MVP
asp.net faq : http://asp.net.do/faq/
foros de asp.net, en español : http://asp.net.do/foros/
======================================

search engines just need to evolve. no biggie.

--

Regards,
Alvin Bruney [MVP ASP.NET]

[Shameless Author plug]
The O.W.C. Black Book, 2nd Edition
Exclusively on www.lulu.com/owc $19.99
-------------------------------------------------------

Another problem that's getting overlooked, is that search engine spiders can't parse the content of
flash/silverlight.

For a lot of our clients that would be reason enough not to go for a full on Silverlight solution (your site is only
as good as its traffic). Yes there are ways to improve search engine friendliness, bottom line is, unfortunately, the
spider still can't crawl the content and rank your page anywhere near as well as if it was HTML.

 

[Anthony Jones]

re:
!> I can't see any reason why the same can't apply in to a Silverlight app in the future.

Let me know when it's ready.

<chuckle>

Yes it could be just another flash (oops) in the pan.

 

[Andrew Morton]

Another problem that's getting overlooked, is that search engine
spiders can't parse the content of flash/silverlight.

Don't tell anyone, but they /can/ parse Flash content...
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/flash.html

Andrew

 

[Scott M.]

I'm still amazed by sites that don't put a date next to their news/blog
posts. It would be nice to be able to know when that article was written.