Silverlight and HTML 5

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Lebatron
Posts: 13
Joined: 04 Apr 2010, 20:16

Silverlight and HTML 5

Post by Lebatron »

I'm not a programmer but was wondering whether it was best to select Silverlight over HTML5 since HTML5 seems to be picking up steam since Apple is 100% behind it. Apple wants to move the Internet away from Flash and Microsoft wants to complicate things by adding their own answer to Flash which is Silverlight. In the end the open source HTML5 will probably prevail since the mobile devices like iPods and iPads, Driods etc will just plain work under HTML5. Google and Apple I hope will move us away from proprietary Flash and Silverlight. I'm kind of tired of having to add packages into my web browser to view todays Internet.

With that being said, I wanted to ask the author of Zuntzu why he choose to use Silverlight instead of going open-source and using HTML5. I'm totally ignorant of programming and all I know is basically want I stated above. I'm just an end user that wants simplicity without the headaches. My best guess is that maybe HTML5 is not ready enough for his project???
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Jerome
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Post by Jerome »

Hi!

My understanding is that the whole HTML5 vs Flash debate initiated by Apple is all about preventing users to install applications that do not come from the App Store: if Apple enables Flash then applications could be ran from Safari, so Apple claims that HTML5 should replace Flash for video rendering.

Google on the other hand needs a royalty-free video codec for YouTube so Google is trying to make everyone switch from H.264 to their VP8 codec by promoting HTML5. For the moment it doesn't seem to work as HTML5 video seem to be mostly H.264 anyway.

But there is more to Flash and Silverlight than video rendering. The runtime engine in HTML5 is based on JavaScript, which is slow. It would be really really difficult to develop something like ZunTzu using only JavaScript.
Jerome, ZunTzu developer.
Lebatron
Posts: 13
Joined: 04 Apr 2010, 20:16

Post by Lebatron »

Thanks for your insights. Yes stay away from slow ass Java :D
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