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There are truly real reasons to stay with basic HTML (or HTML5) for compatiblity. Silverlight will only work if the browser supports it.
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Agreed. I know the reasons for and against and know that Silverlight is limited on mobile platforms. That's why I guess the uptake has not been as grand as once thought. The mobile market is massive and getting bigger and if no one supports it then why use it. However, It is a great product and one I like very much.
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Only exception in Windows Phone, and that is apparently a success because they did not use Window compact/mobile/whatever (Microsoft windows team really screwed around with this product). Silverlight worked extremely well. Maybe should just get rid of windows and use silverlight instead, has some advantages.
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 would be an idea.
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Silverlight is a great developer platform. It's a great framework (.NET + Linq is unbeatable.) And it's got a great, well-designed language in C#. You can build great things with it. I did.
But it doesn't matter, Silverlight is dying. (Or more precisely, it will lie stagnant until its end of life.) It's dying because it doesn't run on mobile, and doesn't run on non-MS platforms. (Barring perhaps SL on MacOS.)
I've come to realize that in the past few years, that what matters more than greatness is reach. Even though Silverlight + C# is a better combination than HTML5 + JavaScript, it doesn't matter; HTML + JS is the lowest common denominator, giving it broader reach.
Your daughter has a mobile phone. That guy out in the African bush has a mobile phone. Every one of us in the western world carries one around in our pockets. Having software run on that is important, and Silverlight doesn't, and that's why it's dying.
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I'll bet that Silverlight will be alive as long as Desktop and ERP are.
I don't recon the Mobile App hype will last much longer / be very economic for much longer as competition is getting massive. Finding a new and unique user app that can go out to almost everyone that carries a phone won't be possible for much longer...
When the dust settles WinForms / WPF / Silverlight / ERP / Java will still be there and will still be as strong as ever...
____________________________________________________________
Be brave little warrior, be VERY brave
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Following that line of reasoning, every possible application for desktops has already been written as well. Or has it?
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Sometimes I think that Business keeps evolving and LOB apps have to follow / lead, as an LOB developer that is my sanity anchor
I've spent many years customizing 'international' apps (like ERP modules) to the local market, and writing new ones. I do feel that sooner or later everything will be available 'off the shelve', but I'm sure the developers have felt that way over the last few decades...
____________________________________________________________
Be brave little warrior, be VERY brave
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From a consumer point of view, mobile does make silverlight a touchy subject. That said, LOB applications are powerful and Silverlight has a strong backing from businesses. The financial sector for example, has taken this technology and have really gained strong data visualization and functionality from this. I think (and hope) this tech will be around for a while. If not im out of a job 
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Judah Himango wrote: Every one of us in the western world carries one around in our pockets.
*cough*cough*cough*
Wanna bet?
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Actually Silverlight is not a developer platform, Visual Studio is. As to Silverlight dying, well, WinForms has been dying for years. Microsoft has put little into WinForms since the initial release of .NET. Maybe a little work in 2003, but basically very little. HTML5 is a cripple, suffering with its start of life as HTML. There are many things we have that are horrible, and we suffer, like the QWERTY keyboard, ethernet, Intel microprocessors, etc...
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Silverlight is great, but Flash was great, Shockwave was great, Java was great and still is if you want to program fridges and kettles. Anyone remember VRML? That was great for about a week.
What the mobile world (and specifically the web) needs is a standard that is consistently supported on all platforms, and not just the execution. You should be able to actually create content consistently on all platforms. I could (if I felt the urge) create HTML5 on my iPad, not just consume it. That is not something I'm likely to be able to do with Silverlight any time soon. The tools to create the content need to be as open as the standard itself, one of the big stumbling blocks for Adobe's / Macromedia's offerings IMHO.
Essentially, until HTML5 has really come of age (if it ever does), people will continue to look for the thing that will usurp it if (or when) it fails, and the more people push it aside in favour of a better supported option on their hardware, the more likely that failure will be.
Danny
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Danny Martin wrote: You should be able to actually create content consistently on all
platforms.
I don't see this.
The vast majority of the population is engaged in consumption rather than creation -- so there will always be a market for platforms that are great at consuming and horrible for creation. It doesn't make sense to invest effort into making those platforms good at creation if the majority of customers aren't going to use it that way.
Put another way, those who create things to be consumed (artist, writers, designers, developers, carpenters, architects...) will always be a specialized subset and will need and want specialized tools.
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I agree with you, but the point I was trying to make was that having an open specification is a wonderful thing, unless you then need to spend £500 to buy a proprietary editor to create it. I was not suggesting that every ten year old should have to make their own flash games, but if they wanted to, they should not have to go out and get creative suite to do so for example. An open, cross platform standard should be open 'end to end'.
Danny
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I have no problem paying for a hammer or a router or a tablesaw when I want to build furniture.
Why shouldn't I expect to pay for an editor or a compiler or an IDE when I want to build some software?
Any system that doesn't pay a man for the fruit of his labors dooms the system to few laborers and little fruit.
Over here we still have to eat.
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Your point is well made. I have purchased (several times in fact) Dreamweaver, initially from Macromedia and subsequently from Adobe. I did this because I like the software and it helps me to do my job. I have also downloaded Aptana Studio, Netbeans and several other IDEs with similar specs for absolutely nothing. On occasion I just hack out a bit of HTML, PHP or MySQL in TextEdit - the Mac equivalent of notepad. I prefer to do the majority of my layout in Dreamweaver, as it suits the way I work, and code the backend with something a little more cerebral. The point is that I can, I'm not tied to one company providing one package, I have options and I make my own choice. If I want to pay for an all singing all dancing IDE then it's up to me, and if I want to bump the whole thing together in a text editor then I can do that as well... It's my call.
That is the point I was trying to make...
Danny
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Agreed.
Being tied to a single company without options is usually a bad thing in the long run.
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Clifford Nelson wrote: I think that HTML5 could be a windows killer, which is not neccessarily bad
since if the move to HTML5 is successful, why do I need Windows if everything
runs HTML5.
I don't understand that statement. Perhaps it needs qualification but since HTML5 is in no way an operating system nor even a programming language the statement doesn't make it clear what is being compared.
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It is a programming language of sorts. A limited one, but it still is. It operates within a browser, which can provide as much functionality as you want to give it. Usually permissions for stuff excuting under a browser are limited to protect against viruses. Even the original HTML had the ability to be programmed, just not a general purpose language like C.
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Html is not a programming language.
Far as I can tell html5 is not a programming language either.
One of course must first define a definition for "programming" language and the following is good enough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language#Definitions[^]
Note that it specifically says html (presumably not html5) is not a programming language.
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If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_programming[^] you will see that HTML is specifically included as a declarative programming language as a Domain-specific language. It all depends on how you want to look at it. YOu will note that the article you specify actually says "not generally considered programming languages," which implies that some people consider them such. And really what is the significant difference between HTML and HTML5. I suspect that most people that would consider HTML not a programming language would also consider HTML5 not a programming language.
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Clifford Nelson wrote: you will see that HTML is specifically included as a declarative programming language as a Domain-specific language.
Interesting. However that still not not fit under the general umbrella of "programming language".
Clifford Nelson wrote: which implies that some people consider them such
Quite possible. I am also sure that some people presume that computers are the work of the devil. That however has nothing to do with most peoples general understanding of computers.
Clifford Nelson wrote: And really what is the significant difference between HTML and HTML5.
I know there are differences. I also know that by itself HTML5 is not Turing complete either.
Clifford Nelson wrote: I suspect that most people that would consider HTML not a programming language would also consider HTML5 not a programming language.
I can only not that I have seen many people state specifically that HTML is not a programming language. Myself I wasn't clear about HTML5 but so far nothing I have seen suggests HTML5 is.
I should also note that I don't consider regexes to be a programming language either (as per your link). However I have been using perl for about 20 years and it is a programming language and one which makes extensive use of regexes.
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The only reason i would be using HTML5 to build an application is for cross compatibility (pretty much like a Java application) otherwise i prefer to stick with the included guns in the OS.
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I don't know as I agree with the author of this article 100%. He sounds very knowledgable but I think his approach or knowledge of HTML5 development lacks.
to really understand and implement HTML5 application you have to rethink things. take for example the latest facebook app for the iphone.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/facebook-iphone-app-update_n_1826137.html[^]
in essence this is an HTML5 app but when they developed it they really thought hard about its development, deployment and use as an application.
I hate to say it but as intelligent as the article sounds I would have to put this article in the category of all the other HTML and javascript haters out there. 
as if the facebook, twitter and message boards weren't enough - blogged
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Oracle has released a new version of Java to address the serious security flaws that attackers have been exploiting all week.
More[^]
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