Silverlight VS WPF [modified]
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
IT departments love web based applications over desktop applications as it usually means a lot of time saved to them in support and deployment.
That's the promise. Sadly, the reality often falls far short and there's just as much pain in supporting said application, having followed a vastly increased development time as you spend so much time working round web app limitations.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
Sadly, the reality often falls far short and there's just as much pain in supporting said application, having followed a vastly increased development time as you spend so much time working round web app limitations.
Same thing happens in desktop apps. Count the calls to
DoEvents()in a legacy VB app, and you'll get a feel for how much time the author spent fighting, rather than working with the threaded, event-driven model of Windows desktop apps... -
I was playing with Silverlight / WPF early on, and the best way I can describe it is that Silverlight is, essentially, a subset of WPF. Silverlight is stripped down to accomodate the stuff you can do in a web browser (don't get me started) versus what you can do in a client app ala WPF. So, what your boss is asking you to do is reduce by a significant percentage the capabilities of the development platform you're using, for the benefit of being able to run it in a web browser. If you're doing stuff on the wide web, perhaps there's a case for that. If it's for internal company use only, then it's an unproductive decision that offers no benefits other than being able to say that you're trendy.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
then it's an unproductive decision that offers no benefits other than being able to say that you're trendy.
Which can then be wrapped as as saying it's "Enterprise" ready, and the decision is practically a given! :)
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
other than being able to say that you're trendy.
Which sometimes may be a deal maker. Trust me, an "Enterprise Application" these days is naturally expected to have a web based front-end. IT departments love web based applications over desktop applications as it usually means a lot of time saved to them in support and deployment.
And web applications are truly independent of OS on the clients.
You really gotta try harder to keep up with everyone that's not on the short bus with you. - John Simmons / outlaw programmer.
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And web applications are truly independent of OS on the clients.
You really gotta try harder to keep up with everyone that's not on the short bus with you. - John Simmons / outlaw programmer.
It's just a shame that they aren't browser independent.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
IT departments love web based applications over desktop applications as it usually means a lot of time saved to them in support and deployment.
That's the promise. Sadly, the reality often falls far short and there's just as much pain in supporting said application, having followed a vastly increased development time as you spend so much time working round web app limitations.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
you spend so much time working round web app limitations.
What limitations? :) Our LOB web app doesn't have any, i.e. we don't need any local file access etc. The only potential limitation is that it requires JavaScript, covered by our requirement of FF with JS enabled.
You really gotta try harder to keep up with everyone that's not on the short bus with you. - John Simmons / outlaw programmer.
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It's just a shame that they aren't browser independent.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Ours is getting damn close through extJS.
You really gotta try harder to keep up with everyone that's not on the short bus with you. - John Simmons / outlaw programmer.
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
you spend so much time working round web app limitations.
What limitations? :) Our LOB web app doesn't have any, i.e. we don't need any local file access etc. The only potential limitation is that it requires JavaScript, covered by our requirement of FF with JS enabled.
You really gotta try harder to keep up with everyone that's not on the short bus with you. - John Simmons / outlaw programmer.
It's the joy of things like Session, round-trips, page navigation issues and the likes.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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It's the joy of things like Session, round-trips, page navigation issues and the likes.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
We use one page in an IFrame that is loaded for the entire session. JavaScript shows and hides various forms that are all pure JS. Within about a month there will be no more aspx or html pages except for that main one.
You really gotta try harder to keep up with everyone that's not on the short bus with you. - John Simmons / outlaw programmer.
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We use one page in an IFrame that is loaded for the entire session. JavaScript shows and hides various forms that are all pure JS. Within about a month there will be no more aspx or html pages except for that main one.
You really gotta try harder to keep up with everyone that's not on the short bus with you. - John Simmons / outlaw programmer.
That's cool, but how quickly would this have been developed as a desktop app?
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
then it's an unproductive decision that offers no benefits other than being able to say that you're trendy.
Which can then be wrapped as as saying it's "Enterprise" ready, and the decision is practically a given! :)
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
Jim Crafton wrote:
Which can then be wrapped as as saying it's "Enterprise" ready, and the decision is practically a given!
So does that mean the software is approved by Star Fleet Command? :rolleyes:
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
Somehow, my boss hgot it in his head that Silverlight would be a viable technology to deploy an enterprise-level application. We've just spent the last 6 weeks creating a WPF demo, and I'm not in favor of changing to Silverlight at this point. Can anyone with specific knowledge comment on the pros/cons of using Silverlight over a desktop WPF application? I want a clear and un-biased comparison of the two.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001modified on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:50 PM
Deployment is a big pro for Silverlight: Silverlight will act like a web application -- it runs right there in the browser, no manual install required. It doesn't require the full, huge .NET framework. (It uses a subset of the .NET framework that takes less than a minute to install on a fresh machine.) Compare this to to installing the latest WPF runtime on a fresh machine without the .NET framework, which will involve a big download, longer install time, and possibly restarting the computer. Silverlight apps run in a sandbox; you can't harm the end user's machine. Silverlight apps and data can be indexed by search engines[^] if you do things right. Silverlight runs on multiple platforms, including the Mac. With Mono's Moonlight port of Silverlight, you can also run your Silverlight app on Suse, Ubuntu, and Fedora[^]. A con for Silverlight: it doesn't offer everything WPF offers, many WPF features and APIs are missing from Silverlight. Also, because of the sandbox, you can't do things like pop up dialogs willy-nilly, your access to the file system is limited to the isolated storage directories, and you're limited in how much data you can store on the end-user machine.
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
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I was playing with Silverlight / WPF early on, and the best way I can describe it is that Silverlight is, essentially, a subset of WPF. Silverlight is stripped down to accomodate the stuff you can do in a web browser (don't get me started) versus what you can do in a client app ala WPF. So, what your boss is asking you to do is reduce by a significant percentage the capabilities of the development platform you're using, for the benefit of being able to run it in a web browser. If you're doing stuff on the wide web, perhaps there's a case for that. If it's for internal company use only, then it's an unproductive decision that offers no benefits other than being able to say that you're trendy.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
to accomodate the stuff you can do in a web browser (don't get me started)
No, seriously. Why don't you tell us what you think of web applications?
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That's cool, but how quickly would this have been developed as a desktop app?
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
That's a tough one. If we had just gone WinForms, maybe half the time, but to keep our Mac clients as well, maybe twice the time. When the decision was made to go web, Mono was till quite lacking, and non of the other so-called cross platform libraries came close.
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Somehow, my boss hgot it in his head that Silverlight would be a viable technology to deploy an enterprise-level application. We've just spent the last 6 weeks creating a WPF demo, and I'm not in favor of changing to Silverlight at this point. Can anyone with specific knowledge comment on the pros/cons of using Silverlight over a desktop WPF application? I want a clear and un-biased comparison of the two.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001modified on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:50 PM
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I want a clear and un-biased comparison of the two.
Urgentz ... pleze.
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Somehow, my boss hgot it in his head that Silverlight would be a viable technology to deploy an enterprise-level application. We've just spent the last 6 weeks creating a WPF demo, and I'm not in favor of changing to Silverlight at this point. Can anyone with specific knowledge comment on the pros/cons of using Silverlight over a desktop WPF application? I want a clear and un-biased comparison of the two.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001modified on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:50 PM
John, The development team I'm currently on is facing similar issues, minus the "boss" part. Here's what I can tell you: 1). There is very little cross-over between WPF XAML and SilverLight 2). SilverLight 3.0 is really closer to be "LOB ready", don't waste time with 2.0 Other issues: 10 SilverLight Gotchas, with SilverLight 2.0[^] But again, from what the "guys" on my team have mentioned, I would skip 2.0 and concentrate effort on 3.0.
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
It's just a shame that they aren't browser independent.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Well, these days there is no excuse of writing browser dependent code. The Javascript libraries are extremely powerful and encapsulate lot of complexities away.
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
IT departments love web based applications over desktop applications as it usually means a lot of time saved to them in support and deployment.
That's the promise. Sadly, the reality often falls far short and there's just as much pain in supporting said application, having followed a vastly increased development time as you spend so much time working round web app limitations.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
ollowed a vastly increased development time
I don't agree with it necessarily. My experience in terms of rapidity of development has been: VB6 / Winforms > ASP.NET > ASP.NET with jQuery/ExtJS > MFC > WPF > SilverLight. If I want to develop something really quick and dirty and short lived form/grid based LOB app, I invariably choose winforms. However, I have found that in a complex - long lived project the choice of technology itself plays very less part in the development time. Because each technology comes with its own set of problems.
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Somehow, my boss hgot it in his head that Silverlight would be a viable technology to deploy an enterprise-level application. We've just spent the last 6 weeks creating a WPF demo, and I'm not in favor of changing to Silverlight at this point. Can anyone with specific knowledge comment on the pros/cons of using Silverlight over a desktop WPF application? I want a clear and un-biased comparison of the two.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001modified on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:50 PM
You already know, like Pete, I love this stuff too. A year ago I laughed and joked with everyone at the thought of me doing web apps... now it's my main business, all using Silverlight/ASP.NET/WCF. I'm not going to answer your question - I think you know you have to research the pros and cons, and better yet, try it yourself. I will say, however - PLEASE beg your boss not to do it. I don't want to see your posts here (after you've been working with WPF) as you realize painfully how much Silverlight IS a SUBSET of WPF...the lack of rich WPF databinding in markup alone makes me cry (luckily I like writing actual code anyway)... Please....no...
Mark Salsbery Microsoft MVP - Visual C++ :java:
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Somehow, my boss hgot it in his head that Silverlight would be a viable technology to deploy an enterprise-level application. We've just spent the last 6 weeks creating a WPF demo, and I'm not in favor of changing to Silverlight at this point. Can anyone with specific knowledge comment on the pros/cons of using Silverlight over a desktop WPF application? I want a clear and un-biased comparison of the two.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001modified on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:50 PM
Actually now that I've reread your entire post and not just the topic (because comparing Silverlight to WPF is, well no comparison), I'll answer...
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
the pros/cons of using Silverlight over a desktop WPF application?
Cons: 1) The sandbox 2) Very small subset of the .NET framework (although for certain app types, there's plenty) 3) It runs in a browser. 3.0 has offline capability, but it's still in a browser Pros: 1) It runs in a browser. but it runs in more than one browser on more than one platform. 2) Deployment. There's no easier deployment - including ClickOnce Now, if you're convinced you want or need a browser based app, perhaps because it's cross platform and deployment is easy, then there's even more pros: 1) You can leverage existing .NET skills, like C#/VB.NET on a browser platform 2) The Silverlight runtime provides a subset of .NET, so interacting with existing desktop .NET based applications (like using WCF and/or ASP.NET) can be much simpler. 3) Silverlight apps actually run code on the client, unlike other web technologies like ASP.NET (and Silverlight code runs faster than js). Depending on the application, and with a thoughtful design, this can benefit web app performance by allowing distribution of CPU load between server and client.
Mark Salsbery Microsoft MVP - Visual C++ :java:
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You already know, like Pete, I love this stuff too. A year ago I laughed and joked with everyone at the thought of me doing web apps... now it's my main business, all using Silverlight/ASP.NET/WCF. I'm not going to answer your question - I think you know you have to research the pros and cons, and better yet, try it yourself. I will say, however - PLEASE beg your boss not to do it. I don't want to see your posts here (after you've been working with WPF) as you realize painfully how much Silverlight IS a SUBSET of WPF...the lack of rich WPF databinding in markup alone makes me cry (luckily I like writing actual code anyway)... Please....no...
Mark Salsbery Microsoft MVP - Visual C++ :java:
Mark Salsbery wrote:
I will say, however - PLEASE beg your boss not to do it. I don't want to see your posts here (after you've been working with WPF) as you realize painfully how much Silverlight IS a SUBSET of WPF...the lack of rich WPF databinding in markup alone makes me cry (luckily I like writing actual code anyway)...
If there was a site available that listed the things you probably won't like about WPF (and/or Silverblight), at least I would have gone in with my eyes open instead of being utterly surprised at how much it still sucks after three years. And truth be told, it's not so much WPF itself as it is the tools. Since I already knew Silverblight is a subset of WPF, and since I already know that the WPF tools suck, it just goes to reason that developing for Silverblight is going to suck as well. For those reasons, you won't get any of the same "Why Silverblight Sucks Today" messages that I've already gone over for WPF. However, if some new suckage raises its ugly head, I will most assuredly expose it to the light of day. In fact, I already have a new suckage item regarding Silverblight, direct from Microsoft. I guess you'll just have to deal with it and try to talk me down if I get too agitated. Remember, I don't want to hate this stuff, but Microsoft hasn't taken any steps - at all - to ease my pain. I can handle tools that are merely adequate, but when they just plain suck ass, it pisses me off.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
