[BNM] Flash vs Sliverlight...

[paul perrin]

I couldn't attend the meeting, unfortunately. I am interested in what is
being done with it, but as any particular release of a product is primarily
strategic, the detail of a particular release is less important than the
strategy behind it.

As I see it the development of the web(/public internet) is following
exactly the same line as telegraph/radio.

Telegraph/Radio went - carrier wave/morse code; modulated wave/voice;
generic digital signal.
The generic digital signal technology was then eventually used by the
Internet(/web) for the same process again - raw text; formatted text;
generic data transfer mechanism.
(the pattern in both being - human processable raw data, human processable
pretty data, generic machine processable data)

Current flash is the last gasp of the 'formatted text' stage of the internet
- Silverlight is part of the first breath of the web as generic data
transfer mechanism.

Flash has a load of baggage picked up as it evolved through the 'web page'
era, Silverlight has a clean sheet to launch the new 'RAI' era. Silverlight
also has the benefit of access to a huge, broad, established
system/application development expertise in the form of MS, and MS oriented
developers.

Evolution is key to these developments -- http has huge flaws as a generic
data transport, but it is an accepted, understood, established standard --
other parts of the internet will have similar problems/benefits but there is
enough experience that it has been made to work (mostly) -- an academic
would probably suggest taking it all down and rebuilding it differently from
scratch (like the idiots who ran Janet pre IP). But given where the free
market has brought the internet, adding layers over the top of the 'pretty
text delivery' mechanism to allow generic data communication to 97% of
desktops is a neat step forwards.  And this can only really be done by an
organisation that already has almost complete penetration of the market.

When it really kicks off, silverlight penetration will be massive, rapid and
immediately integrate the desktop with the web (the network is the
computer), then the question will be 'why use flash?'. For a while the
answers will be 'because we know developers who do it', 'because we have
significant investment in it', but those arguments won't last forever - it
will be interesting to see where Adobe take the battle (maybe by supporting
develpers as an asset, rather than purely as an income stream!?).

These are obviously my own views, the only axes I grind are those foisted on
my by idiot suppliers, it makes no major difference to me what technology
dominates, I'll work with what I have to. My own experience is that
developing in flash is weird, quirky and it is relatively closed; developing
in visual studio is generally a delight - however both can be fun.

Paul /)/+)