Flash/SilverLight

[john_aa]

Hey Guys, I am interested in know, if any of you have used Silverlight and how will it compare to Flash. Will like to know, when should one use Silverlight and when should one use Flash

[drhowarddrfine]

Put it this way. If you use Silverlight, people need to use IE, and they need to install an ActiveX object to use it (and maybe Windows only?). So viewers are limited. Don't use it. Why should you?

[JKnoch]

I have a pretty good understanding of flash, I use it almost everyday for work writing mini web applications, movies, ect. When I first heard of silverlight, I really jumped on the band wagon for a few important reasons.

I am teaching myself .net to add to my skills, with the hope to bring my creativity into programming. In my experience most programmers are happy with their application working and showing the correcct data set and preforming correctly, but do not appreciate the look and feel of their applications. I hear, well it works correct, now make it look good, all the time at work.

Silverlight seemd to be the missing piece. I went to a few demonstrations and a few microsoft class for silverlight. Programtically, there are some up front differences.

Silverlight uses programming skills to develope it's applications, where flash uses a timeline to develope applications.

Silverlight was designed so .net programmers could build flash type applications without learning flash.

Silverlight doesn't give you the creative freedom the flash does as easily.

Most of the very "cool" looking applications were designed by old flash designers, so it is possible to break the sliverlight mold.

Silverlight will easily work with microsoft products and pages, example, conecting to databases, interacting with .net applications, and so on.

Microsoft said that it will eventually be put onto a Mac and used in other browsers, and the plug in is about the same time as the flash player, it just seems annoying, because flash is everywhere and come standard on most computers out of the box.

I could ramble on and on about the pros and cons of it, but in my opinion, and the opinion that microsoft is pitching at its events, if you are a flash programer, then thats what you are. If you are a .net programer, but want to be a flash programer, you can already program in silverlight, you just to start.

So basically if you know .net already but have no knowledge in flash, you already know the "actioncript" language of sliverlight