ASP.NET vs. Silverlight [closed]

Answer 1

Given your background in .NET but limited Asp .net experience... I assume you are more of a service/client guy. Which will mean your javascript is probably just as limited... If this is the case, I'd go with Silverlight. It will ease you into WPF, which you may be likely to use in the future.

But more importantly working with Silverlight 2.0 feels more like building a sandboxed desktop application. More than a web application. You will be more at home with Silverlight if your prior experience is with client apps.

If you want to break into building web sites/applications go with ASP .NET MVC.

Either way knowledge of the typical ASP .NET controls will not go far, since they are for WebForms.

Answer 2

I would say - unless you need flash-like animation and interaction capabilities - go for ASP.NET. It's simpler to program against and doesn't require extra downloads for the users.

Answer 3

Both personally and professionally, I write C# daily for Windows forms apps and Windows services. Even after years of this, I find it FAR faster to whip out a web app with PHP or Python than to do it with .NET. Maybe things have changed with Silverlight, but to me the learning curve on ASP.NET is ridiculous compared to the payback.

Edit: The above was written a year or so before I tried ASP.NET MVC. I find ASP.NET MVC wonderfully intuitive and clean.

Answer 4

It's hard to recommend one over the other without knowing what your application is. Whatever you do decide, make sure you keep your target audience in mind; not everyone is going to have Silverlight installed on their computers.

Personally, unless I was designing an incredibly interactive and beautiful web app, I would go with ASP.NET (with or without the MVC framework) if only for the fact that there is a ton of reference material for it while Silverlight is still relatively new territory.

Answer 5

IMO you may be better off with ASP.Net. While you would have a slight learning curve, you'd be developing on a proven, reliable, scalable model rather than something thats in beta and will likely change before RTM.

Also, with AJAX these days its possible to get a pretty slick user experience out of ASP.Net.