Silverlight Development And Its Future In Windows 8

By Author: John Mackmohan
Total Articles: 4
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Early Days
Microsoft had pitted its own Silverlight standard as a prime competitor to Adobe Flash some years back. Silverlight development involves the perfect blend of animations and graphics and hence many applications still use it to make the web more interactive. It is also popular with various visual aids since it enhances the quality of video by several notches. Many Silverlight developers work on web apps and use it efficiently with the help of its supported plug-ins.
Losing Popularity
Most analysts believed that Silverlight would be dead soon since it had been losing out to Flash in the web development scenario. Although Microsoft has preferred HTML 5 as the go-to web standard like everyone else, Silverlight remains one of the developmental technologies for the future.
Silverlight was expected to die after it released its version 5 although several issues prevented Microsoft from pulling the plug then. Windows Phone 7 housed the latest entrant of Silverlight and CRM 2011 also extended its support for using Silverlight.
Additionally there were numerous Microsoft partnerships which revolved ...
... around Silverlight technology and part of the entire ecosystem. Some analysts believed that Silverlight can continue as a technology and needs upgrades to become one of the competent technologies that Microsoft has ever produced!
On the Windows 8 Platform
Now Silverlight developers can go about developing apps for Windows 8. XAML developers can now utilize their skills for coding especially to write snippets using C# and Visual Basic and the APIs which are now quite familiar for them. The intrinsic controls do not change much while there are some new ones which pertain specifically to Windows 8 Metro apps.
Additionally, there are some new features for XAML developers to learn like the integration with Windows 8 and new APIs which can be integrated into Metro apps.
Microsoft has also revealed that Silverlight runs on Windows 8 in the desktop. One should carefully consider if there is any business value to get a Metro app for business. Some apps will benefit, but some definitely won’t. There are some average apps which can work as a desktop app and add tremendous value as a Metro app. It is more of an expanded audience and then plan out.
Expanding Your Skillset
With every technological change, the developers learn, refactor and relearn. Most of the XAML developers would feel that their lives resemble an iterative and Agile project. One can even opt for learning HTML5, JavaScript and CSS along with Silverlight to write Metro app codes since there are pros and cons to both approaches.
Having skills in both XAML/C# and HTML5/JavaScript/CSS will help add value to the apps. Knowing both approaches to development will give a balanced perspective on the merits of each of the development processes. And in the end, Silverlight lives, with its sixth version.

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