Why would a developer use Silverlight?

Question

I know virtually nothing about Silverlight. I'm considering creating a browser based app and really don't know if it should be built using Silverlight or ASP.NET (which I am familiar with). I'm curious as to the reasons why a developer chooses to use Silverlight.

Thanks very much.

Answer 1

ASP.NET and Silverlight aren't comparable.

Silverlight is a client-side framework, comparable (perhaps) only to Adobe's Flash while ASP.NET is a server-side framework.

You use those in conjuction, not one instead of the other and they're not connected in any way.

Answer 2

There are a few reasons you may want to consider using Silverlight:

• You have a need for great looking and interactive web applications (that are not Ajax, jQuery, etc.).
• You want to utilize your current programming language (VB.NET, C#, etc) skills.
• You want your "web app" to be available out-of-the browser.

There are other reasons - have a read: Top 10 Reasons to Use Silverlight. There can be a signifcant ramp you would need to make, but once made, you may prefer SL for certain things over ASP.NET and even in some cases, not really have option available to you in ASP.NET, like, for example, perspective transforms of images that can be animated from user interactively.

Answer 3

If you are building something that requires lots of UI interaction, and is reasonably non-static with its presentation then i would suggest Silverlight.

If you are doing (relatively) simple UI (i.e. tabular based presentation of data like clients and orders) with not too much UI trickery then i would suggest that you stick with ASP.NET.

Having done both, i find that Silverlight kicks butt when it comes to doing complex UI stuff, or you need to eliminate callbacks and postbacks to the server.

Answer 4

• Reuse .NET code and skill on the client browser.
• Achieve high performance.

Answer 5

Use Silverlight if you want a flash type site without using Flash. If you want to use the .NET stack Silverlight is the way to go to do what flash can do.

Answer 6

Silverlight was originally known as WPF/E. It is a light version of Windows Presentation Foundation, designed for the web and embedded devices.

But yes, you can think of it as Microsoft Flash.

Answer 7

You could also try using web standards also, sprinkled with some Jquery and Ajax, with maybe Modernizr to use html5. What do you need to do with this exactly?

Answer 8

Because it's the only option for third party software development on the upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform. (OK, also XNA, but that's for games)

Oh, and they also use it on the Web for some reason.