

Microsoft releases Silverlight 5 - tilt
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-releases-silverlight-5/11391

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AshleysBrain
"3D support that uses the XNA API on the Windows platform to gain low-level
access to the GPU for drawing vertex shaders and low-level 3D primitives."

Is this the type of thing they said was a security problem with WebGL? What
have they done to mitigate the security risks they raised themselves with
WebGL?

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daeken
The concerns that have been raised around security in WebGL are 99% centered
around shaders, which have been available in a limited form (just
pixel/fragment shaders) in SL for a while now, as image filters. It's been a
fairly hypocritical argument the whole time, IMO, although I do believe the
risks are real (since I've been doing a good bit of WebGL/general 3d security
analysis for a while myself).

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Stormbringer
I thought they gave up on Silverlight. Is this the last hurrah? Or are they
not going down without a fight?

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ale55andro
What makes you think so? sl4 support until 2013 and sl5 until 2021 sounds like
great news for people invested in silverlight. Also despite Maryjo's
speculation that sl5 will be IE and windows only, now we know SL5 continues to
support the same set of browsers it supported in sl4 on both windows and mac.

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RainFlutter
"SL5 until 2021" really means "bugfixes and security updates only," of course.
The future of the technology is stagnation.

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ale55andro
There is still only speculation that this will be the last version. That said,
it will most likely fit the bill for a lot of apps in it's current form. If
SL5 can give you what you want, I don't see a real problem not to use it to
develop your next app. It has the tools now and it's in production now.

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simonw
If you don't think an app you start writing today will still be being used in
10 years time, you're being short-sighted in my opinion. That kind of attitude
is the reason so many companies are still stuck on IE6 (which came out just
over ten years ago) due to poorly written intranet apps.

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ale55andro
You raise a point which is interesting if there was an official word from
microsoft that this will be the last version. Right now this is still only
speculation. Anyway, from a pragmatic view point SL5 is available today. A
fresh release like this is a good reason to rejoice instead of speculating
when the next release will be. Out of curiousity, what alternate are you
suggesting that has the same unmatched tooling, documentation and support
"today"? Specifically, if the mobile/tablet is not your target and your main
audience is desktop on mac/windows and perhaps linux(note: with a small effort
you can make your app work on moonlight too).

Edit: note also that with a small effort you can target the new windows 8
marketspace and release it as a metro style app as well.

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mikerg87
Am I mistaken that what we know as silverlight is built in as a first class
API in windows 8 and thus you wont need a plugin anymore to write code for it?

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dmethvin
Do you mean a plugin as in the browser? No, you will need a plugin to run
Silverlight in IE10 on the deskop, and you cannot use Silverlight (or Flash,
or any other plugin) when IE10 is in its tablet-style Metro mode.

The new WinRT API that Windows 8 is built on is very similar to
Silverlight/.NET but is not totally compatible so it requires code changes.
Most SL programmers will be able to find their way around pretty easily
though. The UI guidelines for Metro have changed quite a bit so there are more
considerations than just porting code.

[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/apps/br22957...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/windows/apps/br229571%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)

~~~
mattmanser
_No mouse/keyboard events: They along with Touch events are unified under
Pointer events. For more information, see Touch and mouse input._

I can see that being a PITA. Will have to look through what they've done
sooner rather than later I think.

Is Win8 going to be the first hybrid system that people are going to have to
write code for?

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pokoleo
"Microsoft released to the Web on December 9 Silverlight 5, which could be the
last major release of Microsoft’s"

The last major release of microsoft. Does that include IE?

