The Right Tool for the Job

Paul Stovell

Paul Stovell

— 2 min read
This is an old post and doesn't necessarily reflect my current thinking on a topic, and some links or images may not work. The text is preserved here for posterity.

Since PDC there's been some discussion about the future of Silverlight vs. HTML 5:

Via: Our strategy with Silverlight has shifted (Mary Jo Foley)

But when it comes to touting Silverlight as Microsoft’s vehicle for delivering a cross-platform runtime, “our strategy has shifted,” Muglia told me.

Silverlight will continue to be a cross-platform solution, working on a variety of operating system/browser platforms, going forward, he said. “But HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform,” Muglia said.

Of course, it's all about choosing the right tool for the job. Prior to PDC, Microsoft's recommended distribution of those choices looked something like this:

Before PDC, Silverlight was touted as the best user experience solution

Since PDC and Microsoft's promoting of HTML 5 (which is great), the recommendations feel something like this:

After PDC, Silverlight is a good fit for only a smaller number of scenarios

I think this is much more sensible.

It should be said that these graphs are only accurate for those of us outside of Microsoft. If you work for Microsoft, the distribution looks more like this:

Most Microsoft development is still done in Win32, and probably forever will be

And now that Ray Ozzie has left, that 1% for Silverlight (which was there for Live Mesh) is also gone:

If you work for Microsoft, you should still use C++/Win32

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