Silverlight vs Flex

Question

My company develops several types of applications. A lot of our business comes from doing multimedia-type apps, typically done in Flash. However, now that side of the hous

Answer 1

I think Silverlight is most advantageous for companies that have .NET developers but noone with designer experience.

Skill sets will be easier to find as far as finding C# or VB developers vs finding ActionScript guru's. However there is the trade off:

Design experience is an investment not only in Designers with artistic skill, but also in the knowledge and tools provided by Adobe. You can nearly guarantee that a professional designer uses a mac and has experience with Adobe tools.

Right now the Silverlight designer tools are half baked and can be a headache. For instance Blend errors when trying to render any xaml containing an IValueConverter, this is problematic. I have no idea what the Adobe developer experience is, I'm sure it is as hairy.

So at this stage of the game it comes down to human resources:

If you have .NET experience and little invested in Design skills go Silverlight. Programming skills/tools will be transferable. If you have Design experience and skill set go with Flex. Designer skills/tools will be transferable.

Either way both client platforms require communication with services to get data, so you will always leverage your existing programing expertise on the back end.

Paraphrased Jon's opinion from a different point of view:

I think you should look at Flex as a long-term play, just as Adobe seems to be doing. There's an obvious balance on when to use Silverlight vs. Flex when you're concerned about reach and install base, but here are more reasons Flex is a good direction to move in:

1. Second mover advantage - Just as Adobe built a "better Java Applet" with Flash, they're able to look at how you'd design a runtime from scratch, today. They have the advantage of knowing how people use the web today, something the inventors of existing client platforms could never have accurately guessed. .NET can add features, but they can't realistically chuck the platform and start over.

2. Designer familiarity - While Flex/AIR is a new programing model, it's not entirely unfamiliar to designers. They'll "get" the way Flex works a lot more quickly than they'll understand firing up a new design environment with new feature poor tools and new animation paradigms.

3. Being rid of the RGB color model in Silverlight- .NET was originally built for windows and it is at the core of how it works. Flex ditched a long time ago for an design-centric model.

4. All your tools run on your mac. Nuff said.

5. Cool features - Silverlight still has some catching up to do with Flash on some obvious features (like webcam / mic integration, or 3d / graphics acceleration).

Answer 2

At the end of the day, your developers should not be dictating your technology. This is absolutely a product decision that should be based on your users.

If you are deploying to the consumer Internet, the Flash Player or AJAX is the way to go. If you're deploying to a private LAN for a .net enterprise, you have options.

Answer 3

Asa graphics designer, I've used Flash (on and off) over the last few years, and Silverlight (and its big brother WPF) over the last 1.5 years. Based on what I've heard from my team (all of whom are developers or former developers, if your .Net developers will be doing all the programming, go with Silverlight. I love Flash, but even with the OOP overhaul to ActionScript 3 in Flash 9 and up, it's still a somewhat quirky language, and going back and forth between AS3 and C# will probably drive your developers nuts :-).

For your designers, do the following:

• Get them a copy of Expression Blend, the GUI development tool for Silverlight/WPF.

• Blend has a somewhat steep initial learning curve, and the interface throws a ton of variables/options at you, so invest in some training, and give your designers time to get up to speed with the UI.

• Speaking of training, get a subscription to the Lynda.com video library, esp. the Lee Brimelow Expression Blend training course.

• Caveat emptor: Blend and WPF change rapidly, so sometimes you'll run into bugs in Blend that are fixed in the next beta/CTP of Blend. E.g. There was a bug in Blend 2 that prevent my storyboards (animations) from working in a recent project. I upgraded to Blend 2.5CTP, and it worked.

• Silverlight content doesn't always seem to work with the latest Beta of the Silverlight plugin, just something to keep in mind if you're testing some new feature that's only available in the latest Silverlight plugin.

• Invest in a powerful system (Quad Core, 4Gigs of RAM, etc.) Blend consumes a lot of resources, esp. when you have tons of layers. E.g. I'm working on an app with over a 100 layers(!) in the base app (and another 100+ in some of the user controls), and about 40-50 storyboards. Every few minutes, I have to restart Blend, because the UI stops responding (but doesn't freeze). Either that, or move everything you can into user controls.

Answer 4

As Kibbee hinted at above, the argument of leveraging existing .Net developers doesn't hold much water. It is impossible to be an expert in all facets of .Net development. The platform is just too big. The same goes for Java. The only thing Silverlight has going for it from a skills perspective is that you can code in your favorite .Net language. That advantage is fairly small if you are already doing any significant web development that utilizes JavaScript since Action script is a variation. So really to convert a programmer to either Flex or Silverlight is all about learning the platform's API.

Answer 5

The problem with Silverlight, is that there's still a lot of people who don't have it installed. Also, I"m not sure how well your existing .Net developers will be able to leverage their existing skills if they are only familiar with more traditional server-side .Net coding.

What are your reasons for pushing Silverlight over Flex? If you have to ask the SOFlow community for reasons, it seems odd that you would be so willing to push it.

Answer 6

I use this rule of thumb: if your company is developing internet based multimedia software, and has customers with all sorts of platforms, and you are not doing database intensive applications Flex is the definite answer, if your company develops both internet and DVD based products, less interactive but more intensive (CPU, Memory) and uses ridiculous amount of database transaction Silverlight makes more sense