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I have a big winforms app which I now rewrite as an HTML5 app for the sake of portability.

There is an important UI component with a lot of logic and BCL usage that will be very hard to rewrite as HTML/JS. I am thinking to have this component only in SL.

Looking 2 years ahead does this still give me portability?

The moonlight project seems stuck. Apple may decide to have new rules or break some compatability.

Are these real risks or am I expected to have at least what I have today?

Yaron Naveh
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    This question likely doesn't have an answer. That being said: look around the web, how much Silverlight do you see? And which way is the trend? I personally wouldn't do any web development around SL given all the push with HTML5 and javascript. – Joe Aug 12 '11 at 01:20

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There's no absolute answer to this of course, it's purely opinion.

However, my advice is to stick to general standards as much as possible; as you say - SL may deprecate, Moonlight might not update again, Apple may completely drop flash support. Who knows ?

They are real risks, but you can program defensively - document your API thoroughly, consider writing a REST/WCF/SOAP interface that can provide the behaviour your program needs.

You're right to be concerned that there are risks basically!

Russ Clarke
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    It is my understanding Microsoft is already encouraging developers not to use SL on the desktop. We *nix users and developers have no interest in Mono or Moonlight. – Rob Aug 12 '11 at 02:57
  • Rob's right, MS looks as though it's moving away from Silverlight. – jschorr Aug 12 '11 at 14:21
  • Sadly, although that may be knee-jerk response to people's worry about SL not being used in the windows 8 preview. I try to be optimistic though ;) – Russ Clarke Aug 12 '11 at 15:41
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This is not an easy decision to take. For example, if you are targeting Windows users you can successfully go with Silverlight.

Consider reading this post and looking at the process that lead to the decision (for them it wasn't Silverlight but according to your needs, for you may suit fine).

Nikos Baxevanis
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