what are the pros and cons of each?
+2
A:
This was a fantastic comparison of the two featured in Smashing Magazine:
Doug Neiner
2009-12-26 07:03:22
the best part of the article has to be the flame wars in the comments. As an aside, Silverlight 4 addresses a few of the issues mentioned in the article.
Mathias
2009-12-26 07:38:23
that was a great article, even though the silverlight version compared seems old.
Bassel Alkhateeb
2009-12-26 15:37:15
Well a "good" comparison. I don't know too much about Silverlight but I do know a fair bit about Flash and its clear the author article has only had a quick play around especially when it comes to the animation segment. Also to get around the scripting in Flash one can always program in HaXe and get goodies like generics and then compile to SWF and get better performance than the Adobe compiler :)
Allan
2009-12-28 01:41:40
+2
A:
Have a look at Chrome Experiments. Why use proprietary plug-ins when you can use standards? The knowledge and skills you develop will be useful and very marketable in a year's time.
Square Rig Master
2009-12-26 07:45:34
Bassel Alkhateeb
2009-12-26 15:36:33
No, All you need is the Notepad! Of course there are some IDE's and more will arrive sooner or later. HTML5, Canvas, and SVG will possibly eliminate most of proprietary plug-ins.
Square Rig Master
2009-12-27 00:41:02
+1
A:
Flash:
Pros
- probably installed on 90% (or more) of the world's computers by now.
Cons
- a fair amount of bad press due to bad Flash ads. There are several Flash blocking plugins for Firefox (for example).
Silverlight:
Pros
- it's being actively developed by Microsoft so any limitations are being addressed.
- developing in Silverlight is quite like developing a desktop application (in my opinion)
- the same code can be run both as a browser application and desktop application (recompile required).
Cons
- relatively new technology so it's not got as wide a user base.
- it's developed by Microsoft ;)
- relatively little used outside Microsoft and, despite Mono/Moonlight, runs only on Windows platforms. (thanks Rob)
ChrisF
2009-12-27 15:38:04
Silverlight con: compared to Flash, relatively little used outside Microsoft and, despite Mono/Moonlight, runs only on Windows platforms.
Rob
2009-12-27 16:39:59
A:
Here is the answer: Silverlight is free to develop for. VS Express, compared to VS full, is, well, almost indistinguishable. If you haven't been using it for years you won't need anything in the full edition.
Flex however costs lots of money. Lots. And i'm guessing by virtue of you asking the question that you don't have a copy.
Dan
2009-12-30 10:53:20