I have read today this interesting article about the gradual dying of “Silverlight” aka “Microsoft Flash”, it’s linux implementation/clone “Moonlight” is already dead.
Linux Silverlight Plugin Moonlight ‘Abandoned’
By Joey Sneddon, Published June 4, 2012
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Moonlight, the third-party open-source implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin, has been discontinued due to a lack of demand.
Moonlight logoThe project, created in 2009, provided Linux users with a means to accessing websites and web content created using Silverlight.
[b]Once touted as a rival for Adobe’s Flash, Silverlight is in danger of being canned itself. Wikipedia reports that, as of August 2011, less than 0.3% of websites make use of the technology, compared to Adobe’s Flash 23%.
With such poor adoption for the official version it makes the demise of Moonlight less surprising.
Putting developer time, resource and money into providing access to a fading, irrelevant web technology makes no sense.[/b]
The CTO of Mono development company Xamarin, Miguel de Icaza, explained the reasoning further in an interview with Infoq.com: -
“We have abandoned Moonlight.
[b]Silverlight has not gained much adoption on the web, so it did not become the must-have technology that I thought would have to become. And Microsoft added artificial restrictions to Silverlight that made it useless for desktop programming.“
It’s unlikely that anyone will miss Silverlight, let alone Moonlight. [/b]
I just wonder why CESM is being developed with a very rare, dying, unused technology that has little support and development, while new Open Web technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 have been gaining popularity and strength, even if we want to avoid Adobe Flash.
Actually, Silverlight is not dead. At least MS still supports it. Windows Phone still uses it.
But technologies “die” every 4-5 years. That is life.
Silverlight was a good fit when we started 2.0. HTML5 was not officially supported at that time.
Silverlight allows us to develop rich web-clients without heavy web-servers like IIS 7, HTML not. Without IIS installation process and maintenance of CESM are easier, more OS are supported.
I agree, at the moment HTML5 is preferable. But I also believe, functionality and convenience are more important then technologies.
I think html5 is where it needs to be. Almost every modern browser supports it including mobile platforms. Other then IE6/7/8 and some odd mobile phones everyone else supports it in someway or another. And another advantage is the customer does not need to install anything, it will just work with the browser.
MS and only MS has to supports it and as you can read in the above article, even MS does not seem to bother much about it.
Don’t we have simple alternatives to IIS ? Don’t take me wrong… I am totally dumb in this regard. But, If I were you, I would prefer an evolving technology rather than a dying one, even if it seems easier to apply.
Functionality and Convenience can also be achieved with properly utilising technologies, we have been seeing so many implementations of it lately. That said, as I already mentioned above, I am not a programmer and I am not dictating anything here. It’s always your choice.
But, I would prefer to use the latest, evolving and more promising technology that spans more devices not just MS Mobile or IE and the technology that has got support of a wider community than just a single company (MS).
Are you a developer? :o ???
Technology = functionality and convenience.
What is the functionality and the convenience provided with Silverlight Technology? It is only supported by MS and can only be used within Windows OS. (And CESM will never be supported for Linux based systems, since Moonlight is dead).
What is the functionality and convenience provided by HTML5? It can be used within any OS, as well portable devices (Technology = functionality and convenience).
If you think “functionality and convenience” is provided by a third factor other than technology itself, then you are looking for “convenience” FOR THE developer only (the easiest way to deliver a product without much of a hassle for the developer).
I mean the functionality and the convenience of a product, not a technology. Technology is a tool only.
CESM did\do not support Linux and Moonlight as it still is the Windows based product. And customers first and foremost ask us to improve the functionality and the convenience. But I agree it would be better to support Linux also.
P.S. Maybe you’ll be glad to know that the console works on a Mac OS. You can try and do not hesitate to send me a message if you have any difficulty.
Yes, I did know it works on MAC OS since MS supports it there too.
But to be honest, never tried it since Silverlight in MAC OS its very buggy (at least for me).
You can try and do not hesitate to send me a message if you have any difficulty.