Silverlight the good/bad/ugly?
I have just read Serge Jespers’ blog on Silverlight last July, 2008, this is a good read, and one Microsoft should take to heart.
Silverlight, in it’s many manifestations has been quite successful in many ways as well. Of course Serge isn’t really slamming Silverlight, he does indicate that the related products, Expressions and Visual Studio, seem to be buggy. At the time you could cut Expressions a break, it was in Beta, but Visual Studio being buggy? Or could it have been the set-up or even discomfort the instructor he had was having difficulties? Hard to tell.
I have cut up the blog entry from Serge to attempt to present his viewpoint fairly, and his comments about the difficulty with working are similar to concerns I have with the Expression product. Silverlight is much more than the Expression product though.
Serge has made done a good write about his initial feelings about Expressions, and considering that he works for Adobe, he has been quite fair in his analysis. My comments are just my top of mind thoughts.
Let’s take a look at his comments, and yes I may take them out of context, but you can see his blog by clicking the link in the first sentence of this document:
Serge Jespers’ Comments on XAML/Expressions/VS,NET |
Sam Stokes rebuttal |
“…threading. Being able to spawn off “complex” tasks without choking the main thread is pretty cool.” |
Nice comment, no comment from me! |
“Also, with something like LiveCycle Data Services you can load in large amounts of data really fast in a binary format that you don’t need to parse, which can eliminate one of the main reasons you would need threading. “ |
Great, I like this feature as well! |
“I also like that a Silverlight application can directly communicate with the HTML document it is hosted on by simply setting a parameter. This allows you to get to the HTML DOM and JavaScript on the page, and enables very easy integration with AJAX.” |
Ok, thanks Serge. |
| “Being able to code in either C# or VB.NET is also a great feature. Especially since these two languages are pretty familiar to people developing for the Windows platform.” | I like this one as well |
“ C# is similar to ActionScript.” |
C# is similar to C#, ActionScript 3.0 features a full implementation of ECMAScript for XML (E4X), recently standardized as the ECMA-357 specification. C# is a ECMA standard language like ECMAScript but it isn’t ECMAScript, ECMAScript is quite similar to Javascript. |
“ Next to those languages you also have XAML which does more or less the same things as MXML.” |
MXML and XAML common goals: separation of interface and presentation from logic. XML Paper Specification does mention XAML, but does not mention MXML. Not that being an ECMA Standard has caused any negative attitudes about Java. |
“Code in XAML and C# is really verbose.” |
Ok, but languages like F# are no verbose when you are using it with Silverlight solutions. |
“Code in XAML and C# is really verbose.” “Flex with half the code” So for Silverlight: For Flex: |
The XAML appears to give me more control. You can select the language you want to work with, VB.NET, C# or in 2010 F#. You can also create code snippets to make your work easier.On the other hand I agree with Serge that the Flex is shorter and sweet. |
Data binding is also another good example. In Flex you can bind to a variable or object by using {}. This is exactly the same with in Silverlight but you also have to add the |
Yes, but I also have drag and drop data binding available in Visual Studio and Expressions, so I usually don’t worry about the initial coding and let the computer do the work. |
There’s no CSS support, but you can make styles with “Resources”, which are similar to CSS but are pure XAML. |
Oh good golly, I really want to say other words, the lack of CSS support has been a problem for Microsoft long term. Clearly no one in the design group has me on their speed dial. On the other hand, I like the use of XAML, I get it better than CSS. But I am a lazy guy when it comes to creating solutions. |
“I got a strong feeling that Silverlight was created by people who don’t know anything about designers. My gut feeling is telling me they should just bin the Expression Studio and start all over again but this time hire some people with design experience “ |
Well we all have our opinion. Expression Studio is a work in progress to condemn the whole product is just wrong, the Expression Web 2 is not mentioned here and it is a WONDERFUL product. The Video Encoder is also great in my opinion. Expression Design and Blend user interface seems to be counter intuitive to many, but with practice I find it to be efficient for my needs. |
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