Silverlight vs. Flash

     I’ve been working with Flash since it’s inception as Future Splash.  Now, that’s way back in the day.  Flash has progressed immensely since Macromedia took over and now even more after Macromedia was acqured by Adobe Systems Inc.  Many people that I know still regard Flash as a graphic/animation tool.  It is widely used as an animation tool but is much more robust in this day and age.  Actionscript which is the scripting language that extends the capabilities of Flash has allowed many developers to great rich applications, games, and optimized animation.  It is much like Javascript and anyone who is familiar with Javascript will find it an easy transition to begin developing object oriented code in Flash.  Frame based animation is still practiced today but by scripting them with actionscript it allows many animators to decrease the size of their flash movies and to achieve incredible effects.  To view flash, all you that you require is the flash player or plugin that is available on several OS platforms as long as they have a Mozilla compatible or Internet Explorer web browser.  Several awards sites showcase the best works done with Flash on TheFWA, Dope Awards, and my favorite Flash Forum, Ultrashock.

     I’m currently work as a web developer programming in .NET, but from time to time I’ll develop something in Flash.  Lately, I’ve grown interested in Silverlight.  Some may label it as a flash killer, but it’s just another platform leveraging Microsoft Technology. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plugin for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the web.  To view Silverlight technology, you’ll have to download it’s player which is available for both Windows and Mac OS X.  It’s fairly new and sites are constantly popping up utilizing this new technology.  It show promise and many .NET programmers have taken off with it.  To create many of the intricate animations, streaming demos, and rich applications, Microsoft created a suite of products called Expression.  It is now available for purchase and you can download a trial version to play around with.  Using XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) in conjunction with .NET framework 3.0, developers can create endless possibilities in animation, and application development.  XAML was initially created for Microsoft new OS, Windows Vista. It’s a vector based environment similar to Flash.  These two development/design platforms will conjure up competition which I feel will be healthy for the Internet Community.  I would love to see more Silverlight sites as there are tons of Flash sites already out on the Internet today.