Silverlight... Will it really light up the web?

Microsoft is promoting Silverlight as the next best thing for web development. While Silverlight looks promising and feature rich with version 3.0 on it's way, how do Microsoft's competitors look at the future of web development? What will we use to code our web apps in a few years?

Microsoft introduced Silverlight late 2006 as an alternative to their traditional ASP.net Website and Web Applications. Using an XML like language called XAML, it enabled developers to deliver web animations and rich internet applications 'comparable' to Flash.

With version 2.0 Silverlight reached an acceptable level (feature richness, and bug prone) and shifted it's aim towards true Rich Web UI development like Adobe's Flex (that was released back in 2004). To date, however, Silverlight adds little more to Rich web development then Flex does. Apart from the C#, Visual Studio and .NET Framework support, most 'features' have been available to web designers for years.

On the other hand we've seen the evolvement of Javascript and Ajax development the past few years. Embraced by all camps, advanced Javascript and web standards have grown to a professional level.

It's pretty clear that Microsoft's competition, Google and Apple (amongst others) aim at the next version of HTML, Javascript and CSS. All their present Web applications make heavy usage of HTML, CSS, Javascript frameworks and AJAX technology.

Recently Apple released an updated version of MobileMe. A web based application using SproutCore. They also updated Safari 4 and the iPhone Mobile Safari browser to support CSS 3 and HTML 5.

Google, on the other hand, introduced a Gmail web application running online and offline on both an Android and iPhone using the offline data storage engine of HTML5. And of course their Chrome browser supports most of the latest standards as well since it uses the same WebKit engine like Safari does.

The current HTML 4 specification is pretty limited and dates back to 1999. HTML5 is primarily the same to older HTML 4 / XHTML specification. It's first focus is to be backwards compatible besides pouring in a lot of new elements and functionality.

CSS 3 adds animations and other new possibilities to style HTML pages. JavaScript development is simplified by frameworks like Prototype and jQuery (amongst others).

Microsoft, with Silverlight, chooses for a solution a lot like Adobe's Flex and Flash, which requires specialized software to develop and compile executables. But why do they aim there arrows on Silverlight? Vendor lock-in anyone? :-)

Personally I don't believe a single technology will be the "next best thing". My guess would be that HTML is the ubiquitous standard, adopted by every platform, and won't go away anytime soon (nor will Flash for that matter).

Silverlight does nothing more then Flash does at the moment. I do believe the programming environment and framework is superior to that of Flash (in sense of userbase, language development etc.).

On the ohter hand Flash has the edge when it comes to animation software. And although the Silverlight player runs much smoother then the legacy, and security risks plagued, Flash player, more the 90% of web users have the Flash player installed (at max 25% has Silverlight right now).

Another important factor to keep in mind is the target group of designers and animators that Microsoft would like to see creating Websites with Silverlight. A lot of Flash animators and designers simply love Flash. They won't run away from one of their daily tools overnight.

As you have read, Microsoft hasn't convinced me yet. I'll still use HTML / CSS and JavaScript for most of my Web development. If I'm not able to use these technologies I would still prefer Flash.

Only reason for me to use Silverlight right now would be if I was asked to create a compelling intranet site that would be maintained by C# developers... Or when my boss tells me too... ;-P