Is Silverlight dead?

[caudor]

Here, a question for the folks in the know...
I believe one of the tools used for DDI development is Microsoft's Silver light. I'm just a programming hobbyist, not a Pro. I've read that Window 8 is providing three stacks for developers, including HTML5-CSS-Javascript as a bit of a surprise. XAML's future looks bright.

Do you think this means Silver light is now demoted to legacy status? Will this likely impact DDI?

Thanks

 

[MarkB]

The current online character builder is based upon Silverlight, so yeah, if it's true, that could put a major crimp in the system unless WotC is keeping on top of things.

Not to worry - it wouldn't be like WotC to drop the ball on D&D software support, right?

 

[BriarMonkey]

MS just came out with Silverlight 4 not too long ago, and it is based on the XAML way of doing things. Too, they just released Lightswitch, which I think is a way to integrate data driven mechanics into not only apps, but Silverlight as well.

I'm not sure what you mean by the support of Windows 8 with HTML, etc., other than to assume that the OS will recognize and allow for the rendering of HTML pages (without a seperate browser). If that is the case, it isn't so much the death of a particular technology, but that the OS will be more prone to have problems. By that, I mean not everyone writes, for example, javascript the same way - and there is a lot of deviation from "standards". So, if an OS doesn't handle things right, when it renders a page to your screen it could very well lock up with bad code.

Right now, the OS just passes the script or HTML file to the browser to deal with.

Personally, I find this type of a bundling concerning as it makes the difference between what is out on the web/network nigh indistinguishable from what is local to the machine. Heck, so many people now have a problem just figuring out how to log into a website - much less calling the helpdesk with "it's broke" and not knowing what's broke.

Sorry for the rambling there... I spent 20 years on the systems side of things before moving into development, so there are a few sore spots.

Anyway, based on what I have seen, at least for the current generation (Visual Studio 2010 and the various other tools around that), Silverlight will be around for at least another 5 years or so (which is the typical life-cycle of an MS product).

And, as long as the plug-in works with current browsers (whatever they may be), anyone can still write the code (with the right tools) and still have the plug-in for download. So really, it's more of a browser issue than an OS issue.

So, with all that, come 5 years, who knows.

 

[Nagol]

MS just released Silverlight 5 (with little fanfare) and announced it would be supported for the next 10 years or so.

That said, it hasn't said anything about a future roadmap for the plugin -- no announced plans for version 6 or roadmap for future development.

MS has said the Metro browser for Windows 8 tablets will support HTML5 and won't support plug-ins for display (like Flash and Silverlight). They've called Flash out specifically for "We won't support this.", but haven't made the same statements around Silverlight.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

MS just released Silverlight 5 (with little fanfare) and announced it would be supported for the next 10 years or so.

Oh, they did? Then we can hope to get a somewhat better print support in the CB!

I only hope that the SD management at WotC has learned from the OffCB experience and have the new apps better designed.

 

[Janx]

I've had a few briefings on the topic of windows8 and silverlight. Here's the basic scoop:

Silverlight itself is being downplayed. It still gets used for WinMo7 development. So its not realy dead until winmo changes radically.

Win8 has 2 visual modes (Metro and Desktop) with entirely different development stacks for each.

Technically, win8 is written on Win7, it's mostly the same OS. Anything you write in the current method runs in desktop mode. Even IE10 in desktop mode is like our traditional IE, including support for plugins like flash and silverlight.

Metro mode is a different beast. IE10 in metro mode is a different executable. It does not allow plugins. Thus no silverlight. Remember win8 targets a tablet mindset, so normal users are going to use metro mode for most activities. This means rhe average win8 user wont be able to run silverlight or flash, unless they are smart enough to flip to desktop mode and run IE10 and open the page.

Teleric wrote some pretty goodblog articles detailing the technical stack. So if you're saavy for that, go there and learn more.

A good observation they made is that Metro mode is for data-sipping, desktop mode is for doing real work. The kind of apps Metro mode encourages are lighter, more responsive. Artistically nice looking, at the sacrifice of screen real estate you'd need for a business app.

Since some mention of html and win8 came up, i could go deeper into what that means. It has to do with how Metro mode uses the WinRT stack for .net and html apps to access the system. An html app can actually have access to hardware resources. Note, this is not html as a web page, but an installed app writen in html/js using WinRT js libraries. This is sort of akin to how WebOS apps were written in js. A web language, used for writing native applications is the new concept athand.

Hope this was useful.
Janx

 

[Jhaelen]

MS just released Silverlight 5 (with little fanfare) and announced it would be supported for the next 10 years or so.

Yup, and one of the new features they mentioned was being able to print vector-based postscripts. Previously this only worked with bitmap-based postscripts, hence the ridiculous (memory) problems when printing char sheets from DDI's character builder.
Once WotC has upgraded the builder to use vectors about the only thing they need to add for it to be perfect is the ability to filter out sources and save the filters as campaign settings (like the old offline builder did).