
Understanding jQuery’s impact on Microsoft and ASP.NET - johns
http://encosia.com/2010/10/04/understanding-jquerys-impact-on-microsoft-and-asp-net/
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evo_9
I wish there was something significant in this article beyond MS's Ajax
Library is dead - that's been pretty much understood by any seasoned .net guy
for at least 2 years (aka, when jQuery support hit VS2008).

I wonder how jQuery and its continue improvement will effect things like
Silverlight. I know I steer clients away from Silverlight and toward
jQuery/Open standards whenever I can.

~~~
Encosia
> that's been pretty much understood by any seasoned .net guy for at least 2
> years

One would think, but you'd be surprised.

I've seen the defunct ASP.NET Ajax Library shown in presentations as recently
as two months ago (and that's just what I personally know of). There's been a
lot of confusion since MIX, because there was never an official announcement
that the new library is dead and abandoned.

~~~
evo_9
That's fine. Seemed like a good jumping off point for further
thought/discussion.

Case in point - I wonder how much Silverlight is being negatively effected by
MS's positive support of jQuery (a good thing in my mind)?

Seems inevitable it will follow a similar trajectory as the official ajax
library, and let's face it users are not in any hurry to download a somewhat
superfluous/unnecessary plug-in.

~~~
Encosia
Personally, I'd be happy to see less gratuitous Silverlight usage in web apps.
I think using it for anything you _can_ accomplish with HTML/CSS/JavaScript is
a mistake; modern-day Java applets and ActiveX controls.

I wrote about that a while back, and got a surprisingly positive reaction
overall: [http://encosia.com/2009/09/14/is-silverlight-the-new-
webform...](http://encosia.com/2009/09/14/is-silverlight-the-new-webforms/)

On the other hand, Silverlight _is_ the development model for Windows Phone 7.
That alone ensures its survival for the foreseeable future.

Silverlight does excel when it comes to video too. Things like adaptive
streaming, DRM[1], hardware acceleration, and fullscreen playback are things
HTML5 falls pretty short on. For that matter, HD Silverlight video tends to
run significantly smoother than Flash video on my machines. I've never seen
any other streaming video that matches some of the full-HD adaptive streams
like the Olympics and NFL have delivered with Silverlight.

So, I don't think it's reasonable to expect or hope that Silverlight is
canceled. I just wish people would stop over-using it for things like LoB
apps.

[1] Which, good or bad, is a requirement for most premium online video.

~~~
evo_9
I missed that article, interesting, esp. the response.

I haven't followed Windows Phone 7 much - probably not a good sign as I'm a
pure c# guy 99% of the time - but that is actually a smart/interesting way to
leverage Silverlight. This is similar to _Surface_ , which is (I believe)
another variation on Windows Presentation Layer (everywhere).

Don't get me wrong, silverlight is compelling to any .net developer because
it's pretty easy to pick up and get results fast. I just wish MS would make
the web less muddy by NOT adding to the confusing with something that is more
or less already handled by Flash. There just isn't any need for it in that
space (the web versus win phone 7, surface, etc).

In the long run I'm sure you are right, it's not like Silverlight is going to
be 'canceled', I just wish they would come to there senses about its use as a
web plug-in.

