RIA Wars: Silverlight vs. Flex
I just love it when new technologies make my working hours as a systems architect and developer more productive. Granted, sometimes it takes a while before I catch on. I’m not really an early adopter (got my first iPod last christmas), but when I see something that can help me deliver a better product to my clients, you have my complete attention.
So about once a year, I venture away from my world of C#, business logic and backend systems and into the wonderful world of frontend and user interface systems, thinking that by now, after all these years, someone will have invented something that actually works. It was time for that again this weekend, and I must say it’s been a more interesting journey than usual.
I normally start looking at XHTML, CSS and Javascript, and every time I feel immediately disappointed: These technologies pretty much still look and feel the same, no matter how much IDE candy, code-completion and drag-and-drop you throw at it, and still behaves wildly different from browser to browser.
Next on my list is to download the lastest version of Flash whilst hoping that this time the good folks at Adobe have stopped smoking whatever it is they were smoking when they invented Lingo and have produced a real development toolset. Something that looks and feels like it could actually be used for serious development work. But this time, I didn’t get that far. One of my colleagues had for weeks been talking about something called Silverlight from Microsoft, which everybody was describing as “a Flash killer in C#”.
Silverlight
Silverlight turns out to be a very interesting and promising technology. It certainly looks like it was meant to be a “Flash killer”: You download a plugin for your browser and then you are all set to view so-called Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) that contain movie clips, vector graphics and all sorts of cool effects.
The thing is, Silverlight uses a declarative XML-based language called XAML and you code the entire thing in .NET. Yes, that means C# code which gets compiled and runs in a special, stripped down CLR inside the browser. Very cool.
But it gets better: It not only works in Internet Explorer, it also works in Firefox and even Safari on Mac. And the Mono guys are hard at work on a Linux version called Moonlight, apparently with some support from Microsoft.
I promptly downloaded the bits for the alpha version of Silverlight and the toolkit for VS2008 and set out to create something worthy of the RIA buzzword. And after playing around with it for some hours, here’s my current take on Silverlight:
- - It’s really fun and easy to learn, and it really is C# on the client with vector graphics. Woohoo!
- - It looks and feels like a real development toolset, because it’s based on VS2008, XAML and C# (or VB if you are slow).
- - The IE7 browser plugin fails some of the time, both the released version 1.0 and the alpha version 1.1.
- - The codebase and documentation for the 1.1 alpha is far from complete, but that’s to be expected.
- - There are tons of features that I would love to see included, and from what I can read in the forums, I’m not alone.
So - Silverlight is something of a work in progress. They expect to have a new beta out in Q1 2008 (renamed to “Silverlight 2.0″), which should contain a lot of new features and with a Go-Live licence. My guess is that Silverlight would then become a “real” product during the summer of 2008. But the question remains: Is this a “Flash killer” ? Time to download that new version of Flash and have a look.
What the heck is Flex?
As it turns out, I must have been living in the land of Microsoft for too long, because I had never heard of Flex. Flex is Adobe’s development toolset for building RIAs, and guess what? It doesn’t look anything like Shockwave or Director, it doesn’t run on Lingo and most importantly, it doesn’t suck at all.
With Flex (version 3 beta 2), you can compile applications using an open source SDK if you have too much free time on your hands, or you can be smart and use Flex Builder, an IDE based on Eclipse which works like a charm! The end result is an SWF-file, which runs in any browser-based Flash player, or in a desktop application using Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). Completely cross-platform.
Flex is based on MXML, which looks suspiciously like XAML - or is it the other way around? You write code in ActionScript 3 (AS3), which is a script-language that is based on ECMAScript. Now where have I heard about ECMAScript before? Oh yeah, that’s right. It’s Javascript. Damn.
But as it turns out, it’s not that bad. Sure, things are not strongly typed, there are no generics, there’s no way to count the number of elements in an associative array except for the stupid way, etc., etc., but on the plus side AS3 and Flex as a whole is extremely easy to work with and well geared towards quickly and painlessly writing complex RIAs. And let me tell you: The feature set is no joke, and neither is the community around the product. Practically anything you can think of, someone else have already wrestled with and solved in Flex a long time ago. Need to integrated with something other than a simple web service? Or use sockets to communicate directly with someone? Or how about streaming and processing video or audio? Go right ahead, it’s all there.
I could go on.
And the Winner is..?
Perhaps Silverlight really will become a Flash killer - but I don’t think it’s going to happen over night. Flash players are (according to Adobe’s figures) present on 97% of desktop computers and well on the way to be a leading platform for mobile devices as well. Silverlight won’t get there for at least 12-24 months, if at all.
So for now, even though I do miss the consistant and strongly-typed world of C# and .NET, Flex is the easy choice for RIA development.
Let me hear from you. Am I missing something? Do you agree or disagree with my short analysis? Comments, please!
06.12.2007 at 19:04
Personally, I think Silverlight still has a long way to go. Silverlight 2.0 (previously 1.1) goes a very long way by adding rudementry components such as input boxes, combo boxes, etc., which are all things that one would expect in an RIA. The weight of the plugin is also very heavy, coming in at around 40MB (compared to the flash player that can fit on a floppy).
The language is very similar in both platforms. C# is an ECMAScript based language just like ActionScript. Both should behave exactally the same, as they are modeled after the same standard. Both are strongly typed, while still supporting generic objects (in Flex, this can be an Object).
While the devlopment IDE is much more mature than Flex Builder, it has made strides to be just about the ultimate devlopment tool. The Flex SDK is also riding on 4 years of maturity that Sliverlight just plain doesn’t have yet, let alone the 10 years that the Flash player has been around.
My only other concern I have is the track record Microsoft has for other platforms. Microsoft has taken many of their other products and promised the world, but ended up leaving them to rot (Office MAC, Internet Explorer, etc.). This plus only having the devlopment platform only on Windows makes it that much harder (Flex has it for Win, Mac and Linux).
06.12.2007 at 20:50
Hi quetwo,
Thanks for your comments! Here’s a little feedback:
- I agree that Silverlight has a long way to go and that many of the features expected in a RIA environment are not present yet. However, looking at how quickly the Microsoft XNA team was able to turn a good idea into a real product, we can hope the same is the case for Silverlight.
- Note that the target filesize for the Silverlight 2.0 runtime is approx. 5mb on Windows, although I’m not sure if that goes for Mac and Moonlight versions as well? Definitely something to investigate, as 40mb would probably be completely unacceptable to most.
- I was referring to the C# language feature “generics”, which allows you to write template code. I haven’t seen that in Flex, but perhaps I’m just nok looking hard enough?
- I believe that C# is ECMA standards compliant, but not based on ECMAScript, which in fact *is* Javascript.
- I’ve spent a bit of time during the last week with Flex Builder 3 (beta 2), and I must say that there are lots of small things in the IDE that are lacking. But let’s see what it looks like in the final version!
- Yes, the cross-platform aspect of Silverlight is also one of the things I’m most interested in seeing realized - it will be the real test of whether Microsoft are serious or not on a larger scale.
12.12.2007 at 21:05
Hi there:
Thanks for the nice words about Flex. I’d be happy to send you a book and training DVD to help make learning Flex easier. Just email me your address. Also, check out http://flex.org/showcase/ to see some the cool things that people have built with Flex. There’s also a page that lists all the community resources available, at http://flex.org/community/
Thanks!
Mike
Mike Potter
Adobe Flex Product Marketing Team
12.12.2007 at 21:40
Thanks a lot Mike - I’ve sent you an e-mail
A side note: Looking at my first ever application in Flex, my “isometric pathfinder demo” which is on this site, it seems worlds apart from any other first application I’ve written over the years in a new language/environment. For me, it was a cool first-time user experience to just imagine how things should work and then go straight to implementing them without being bogged down by the IDE, language or framework.
13.12.2007 at 02:16
As I say to lots of folks around the world, this isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon and most important of all, something I cannot stress more so in todays market is this:
This isn’t a Zero Sum Game. You don’t have to drop one for the other, you can use both.
Right Tool, Right Job, Right Time.
-
Scott Barnes
RIA Evangelsit
Microsoft.
13.12.2007 at 20:49
Hi Scott,
Thanks for commenting!
I couldn’t agree more: RIA is in strong growth, so it’s definitely not a zero-sum game. However, I’m pretty sure that when Scott Guthrie (http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/) says that Silverlight 2.0 will be a “superset of Flex functionality”, he’s not thinking “right tool, right job, right time” - he’s thinking “Flash killer”. Which is fair enough, of course!
Anyways, it’s good to hear it directly from the source that Microsoft is in this for the long run. I may sound a bit off-put by Silverlight’s current form, but I think that’s because all the hype surrounding the 1.1 alpha left me somewhat disappointed. So now, I’m really looking forward to the 2.0 beta.
..And if it’s not already said enough in the forums and on Connect, let me say it again: Please please please include Sockets
13.12.2007 at 22:25
Just a correction on one of the comments…
quetwo said: “The weight of the [Silverlight] plugin is also very heavy, coming in at around 40MB. ”
This is off by a magnitude of 10 - the Silverlight plug-in is actualy around 4MB as of version 1.1 Alpha.
What I see attractive about Silverlight over Flex is that you will be able to use the same familiar framework and languages from the client, through the business logic tier and data access tier, and even to the database if you wish.
13.12.2007 at 23:09
Does anyone have any idea what the % of the market has Silverlight installed? I do…
22.12.2007 at 11:14
RIA Wars: Silverlight vs. Flex
[...]A comparison between Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight as platforms for writing Rich Internet Applications (RIAs).[...]
23.12.2007 at 09:41
I have been architect and have dev managed a new Flex-based product that will be shipping first of Feb. ‘08 - so have a number of months experience with Flex by now.
First of all, ActionScript3 compiles in a strongly typed manner by default. There is a compile mode to relax that and make ActionScript3 behave more like JavaScript. Our development has stayed with strict type checking mode (we’re mostly Java developers and prefer strong typing).
In ActionScript3, classes and interfaces are integral features of the language. Let’s just say that other than a few cosmetic differences in syntax here and there, programming in ActionScript3 is a lot like Java prior to Java 5. Certainly every Java developer on staff that has picked it up has had nearly a zero learning curve so far as the ActionScript3 language itself. ActionScript3 also has properties, events, and data binding. It improves on C# in respect to these particular features. (I’ve programmed C# .NET myself for several years and written some shipping C# .NET apps, so I can make this comparison from direct experience.)
ActionScript3 has a very cool new language feature called E4X that enables accessing XML data using the . dot operator. Very much simplifies use of XML data in Flex programming.
The Flex declarative manner of programming with MXML most definitely aides productivity, conciseness of code, and clarity. After a little experience in Flex programming, it soon becomes straightforward to work in the combination of MXML and ActionScript3. MXML gets compiled into ActionScript3 so the mesh between the two has no awkward impedances.
As to Flex Builder - Flex 3 will have a number of improvements. Source code refactoring will be better supported, even for MXML. The Builder is an Eclipse Plug-In. So as an alternative to using the pre-integrated Flex Builder, the Flex Builder plug-in can be installed in the latest Eclipse IDE release. There are lots of productivity and purpose enhancing plug-ins available for Eclipse. Adobe is effectively leveraging the developer community juggernaut that supports Eclipse. So perhaps Adobe doesn’t have a tools staff to rival that of Microsoft, they are none-the-less able to field a very credible tools environment for Flex by associating to the open source community of Eclipse.
The artistic designer tools of Adobe have support for Flex development. UI elements created in Adobe Illustrator can be saved out into .swf format and directly included as a resource in a Flex application, where they have very nice resizing capability. Adobe is coming out with a more advanced tool for designers that will enable them to devise a working Flex UI. In the meantime, one can acquire a Microsoft Visio stencil for the Flex UI and devise mockups in Visio. The fidelity of these stencils is great.
On account my dev staff are Java-centric and our middle-tier development is Java 6 using Tomcat 5.5 (and perhaps will soon switch to Tomcat 6), the recent announcement of Adobe open sourcing what they’ve dubbed as BlazeDS has really caused us to take notice. Up to now we’ve been rolling our own messaging conduit between the Flex client and the Java-based server using Flex XmlSocket - we’ll likely start transitioning over to BlazeDS. For Java/Flex shops, BlazeDS is a most exciting announcement.
Coincident with the BlazeDS announcement, though, Adobe says they will open up documentation of the Action Message Format (AMF) protocol specification. So folks using other development platforms for the server-side should eventually have a basis to better marshal ActionScript3 objects to and from their preferred language on the server-side. I believe there is already AMF support for PHP and Python. Probably won’t be that long before someone does C# .NET integration with AMF. At which point, there really isn’t much rationale for Silverlight to exist.
Gosh and I haven’t gotten to the Flex charting package, using cool Flash animations and transition effects in a Flex chart, or the extent of customization possible for charting through just using CSS.
Nor have I delved into the component model of building a Flex app using certain key features and what that is all about.
Let’s just suffice to say that Flex is a very mature solution (and am only alluding to what Flex 2 already can do - Flex 3 just piles on more goodness and takes things to the next level, such as hybrid desktop/web RIA apps).
23.12.2007 at 17:47
I wouldn’t call the winner just yet! Also, Silverlight is one Windows Update away from being on 90% of desktops.
Pierre
24.12.2007 at 21:12
Microsoft has almost never been an innovator, but always a very good follower, taking the best and turning it into real/deadly challenges for first movers.
Look at what happened in the late 80’s-90’s:
- MacOS vs. Windows 3.0
- NetScape vs. IE
- WordPerfect vs. Word
- Lotus123 vs. Excel etc…
I guess we will here have a similar outcome in Flex/Flash vs. SilverLight.
Personnaly I never use MS, and hope Adobe will take Silverlight seriously, Silverlight being indeed one Windows update away.
25.12.2007 at 02:31
The web is different, though, in that Windows is pretty much irrelevant. When accessing the web, these days people expect a universal experience - regardless of what operating system or browser they use.
Adobe Flex is an adept cross platform solution (the best that exist for implementing RIA web apps) and the wider audience of Internet-centric developers trust Adobe more so in this respect than they do Microsoft.
Especially as Adobe has continued to open source more and more of the Flex solution set. Now they’ve open sourced BlazeDS - which in concert with the free Flash player, the open source Flex SDK, and the plethora of open source Java-based development software tools for the middle-tier, there is now an awesome, comprehensive, end-to-end solution for the Flex/Java developer.
Microsoft’s aversion to directly supporting the Linux platform is a signature example of why they garner no trust on this matter. A Silverlight developer will have to test and verify against Microsoft Silverlight and then Novel Moonlight - or else just blow off supporting Linux-based clients.
Adobe Flex, on the other hand, embraces Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux - so a Flex developer can be confident in reaching the entirety of the potential audience of users. With the Flex Builder IDE of Flex3, Linux will now also be supported as a development platform (this is terrific news for Java-centric developers that are moving more and more to Linux as a software development OS).
It is reassuring (and refreshing), when choosing Adobe Flex, to not have to put up with Microsoft’s (Steve Ballmer’s) antagonism/paranoia toward Linux. Adobe, in contrast to Microsoft, can cheerfully and unabashedly support all user OS platforms of significance.
So in the RIA web app development arena it actually is better to have a solution associated with a company, such as Adobe, that doesn’t have a vested interest in any particular desktop OS platform. Very few companies that are building software solutions for an Internet audience have internal company priorities that align with Microsoft when it comes to Windows (and all that threatens their Windows franchise). Yet Windows always weighs everything down that Microsoft sets out to do - it’s an albatross of sorts.
28.12.2007 at 19:30
For what its worth, if you like working with .NET, check out WebOrb .NET from The Midnight Coders (http://www.themidnightcoders.com/weborb/dotnet/). It makes using .NET classes from assemblies as remote objects in Flex a cake walk.
29.12.2007 at 05:47
Does it really matter which is the better technology?
29.12.2007 at 21:15
Thanks for the comments and hints on related technologies, everybody!
I suppose it matters which technology is the most productive to work with. Commercial RIAs cost money to make, and the better/more productive technology with the best target audience match is the one companies will choose to build on.
Right now, as I said above, I think that Flex is the easy choice in that regard. But in 12 months time, with a version 2 (or 3) of Silverlight perhaps even pushed out to Windows-users through Windows Update, things could look very different.
03.01.2008 at 13:38
I agree with you, that currently, flex is the better of the two.
But I also think Sliverlight has a place. It seems to me, that most developers who develop for windows using the Microsoft toolchain, have a tendency to simply accept the “next great thing” from Microsoft as being the best of breed. Even though it is not. Simply by this, I think Silverlight will become popular. And of course, the runtime will be on lots of desktops suddenly, when pushed down the drain by the windows update service.
With respect to type safety in AS3. You can have a lot of static type checking in the AS3 language, simply by, … well, using the types in the declarations. The compiler will check then. And this is great. It also means, that the new AVM2 (the flash9 runtime), can do better optimizations, as the type information is carried through down to the bytecode.
03.01.2008 at 21:46
Hi Per,
You are of course right about the type safety - it just doesn’t feel right
Being new to AS3, I found it confusing that Flex Builder (version 3 beta 2 and 3) sometimes gives no or wrong code completion results. Add to this the fact that arrays are not typed and the ability to freely access Xml structures using the dot operator. And the fact that you can’t tell which events can be fired from a class method. And the fact that you can actually tell the compiler to disregard types.
I realize that it’s just the way AS3 works. All in all it just sort of left me feeling that I couldn’t trust type safety when compared to C#.
05.01.2008 at 21:52
Now that the Adobe Action Message Format (AMF) has been opened up, it will be straight forward to devise a close knit development tool stack of Adobe Flex on the client in combination to C# .NET on the server-side.
The Flex Builder on Eclipse and BlazeDS in the middle-tier can be fully replicated but with .NET tooling. A Visual Studio VSX can be written to provide a visual Flex builder and then AMF serialization with respect to .NET CLR objects could be supported so that a .NET version of BlazeDS can be devised.
Like conventional web development, a Flex RIA application can be associated to any manner of middle-tier implementation, so .NET developers can be welcome to the party too.
The JetBrains folks (responsible for the great Java IntelliJ IDE and the ReShaper extension for VS 2005) should jump on this new business opportunity.
07.01.2008 at 19:48
Well one thing that’s also going to be important is the learning curve.
Claus, I’m curious to know how you would compare the the “initial learning experience” of the two technologies?
07.01.2008 at 20:10
[...] I stumbled upon an excellent post by InfoQ regarding Top 10 Adobe Flex Misconceptions, as well as an excellent blog comment regarding why to use Flex (as opposed to certain supposed ahem [...]
08.01.2008 at 12:25
Nice article thanks.
I just wanted to say that I tried both, Flex is quite easy to use and doesnt require too many downloads (just 1 whether you’re using the SDK or the “IDE”), as for Silverlight, well, I’m sorry to say that as usual with MS it’s a pain to get all the tools (I already consider installing 250 Mo of bits annoying especially if you’re just gonna try it for 30 days… so what could I say here waste of time, waste of bandwith, and the interface makes me think of some kind of media player, not an IDE at all) , if anyone could point out some “open source”/light solutions for using this it would be nice?
Last thing that makes me smile, … Flash developers have been criticised and even called “fake” devs ever since they made it on the web…now that MS is releasing it’s “ActiveX, plug-in” technology, I can’t wait to see all these MS developers join the “fake” dev community, welcome aboard, you’re not a dev anymore
(well that’s probably what the AJAX or PHP addicts will tell you, but dont worry, they’re just jealous of all those funky effects you put on your website)
08.01.2008 at 16:27
DSid, I think it’s too early to really compare learning curves, because the documentation and community around Silverlight is really alpha-ish; It’s mostly trial and error. However, being an experienced C# dev, I found it easy to work with Silverlight, although many of the things I wanted to try wasn’t possible when I tried it, due to the product’s alpha state.
Julien, thanks for the comments. I have to say that I was one of the people who laughed a bit at Flash devs previously. For one thing, it had to do with the AS2 language - in all fairness, to “real devs” it seems like a toy language. With AS3, it’s a different matter. Another thing is the Flash IDE and the patterns that were/are possible to employ; To someone used to working with backend-systems, it just seems like a very unstructured and hap-hazard way to develop - much like how most developers see the creative process around graphical design: You drink a lot of latte, throw around a lot of buzzwords, go to incredibly expensive conferences and events, eat a lot of quiche and suddenly voila, you have a great Web 2.0 design!
As we used to say, Real Programmers Don’t Eat Quiche. (if you don’t know that saying, google it)
15.01.2008 at 17:38
You all keep saying Silverlight is only a Windows Update away. Then why are IE6 still used more than IE7. The statistics says our webserver are hit 42% IE6 users and 37% IE7 users.
21.01.2008 at 03:00
Both products is really really cool.
15.02.2008 at 00:25
As a business manager researching technologies that might advance my own business, I have one point of curiosity about this whole discussion: what is the business model that funds development of Flash/Flex product line vs. Silverlight? Is it funded exclusively by sales of development tool?
The question to me is: Can Adobe generate enough income from sales of development tools alone to keep Flash/Flex on top? Microsoft may view Silverlight as a key component to the long term survival of Windows and their continued OS dominance; do it, or the golden goose dies. With their war chest and revenue stream, how can Adobe compete long term, business-wise?
Heck, sometimes I think MS could simply buy Adobe and put an end to the entire problem from their point of view, and generate a nice new revenue stream, too. If the Yahoo buyout dries up, I won’t be surprised if MS goes after Adobe, too (with a market cap of 1/10th of MS’s, and half of the value of the Yahoo buyout….its not a stretch to me).
13.03.2008 at 20:32
[...] presentation gives best illustration why I think it’s important. There’s also an article on RIA Wars about the difference between Flex and Silverlight (Microsoft’s offering in the RIA arena). [...]
21.03.2008 at 22:34
thanks much, bro
29.03.2008 at 18:04
I think currently Flex has the upper hand, especially the fact that you can easily make them into AIR applications, but it would be interesting to see how far silver light makes it.
Also though, ECMA Script is a dynamic scripting language, so it has some power, but MS is suppose to have the DLR for also making any dynamic language work in .NET, so being a .NET developer, it will be nice to see silverlight get up to par with flex, but right now since flash is installed on everyones machines, flex is ideal.
RIA’s are awesome, but they should not replace desktop apps. while the internet will be available everywhere, what if one day it isnt? or you do not have access, there goes all your applications
11.06.2008 at 06:59
Flex is pretty cool, Silverlight is also pretty cool. I currently work on multi million dollar applications in C#/ASP.NET/AJAX. With the RIA world literally exploding on the web right now we are taking a look at Silverlight (2.0). There are strong arguments to adopting it. For ASP.NET software shops like the one I work for, it is an easy choice. Building RIA applications using the tools you already have and knowledge you already know. Combine that with a large developer base, and Silverlight will have success in the market, it’s a fact. But like it was stated earlier, this is not an end game. I expect to see both succeed.
Don’t even compare Silverlight to Flash, they are not of the same target market, not of the same feather. Flash is for watching Youtube videos, winning free iPods, or dancing aliens selling mortgage refinancing.
Adobe makes many great products as we already know, and we can expect the competition to be healthy and beneficial. With the emergence of Silverlight, there is real pressure (on both sides) to improve, enhance, and add to the technologies. We developers stand to reap the rewards.
As for Microsoft being a follower, I take a different viewpoint. Many ideas are only that…great ideas. Often the implementation of the idea leaves much to be desired. As the old saying goes…”build a better mousetrap…” When talking about technologies that Microsoft “took” (and made better), there is something to think about. When there is no competition, you don’t have to run very hard, but when competition comes along and you fall by the wayside, it really shows what you were made of in the first place. A second or third rate developer with no competition. But, if anyone is bitter about Netscape going to the grave, you can actually still download it and use it (though no longer supported). No guns to anyone’s head that I am aware of.
I use many Adobe products daily, especially Photoshop for the graphics I use in Silverlight (I love the irony there), so I have loyalty to both companies. Flex developers should be rejoicing as Flex is not going to go away and is only going to get better from the competition.
I will end with this… all developers, Silverlight and Flex alike, you should do like me, get out the popcorn because this is going to get good!
30.06.2008 at 09:36
I agree that currently Flex/Flash is the best choice over Silverlight and JavaFX. There are more 96% of browser having installed Flash plug-in while Silverlight is still in Beta version. JavaFX is still a vaporware though. Comparing the performance, Flex is more run more smoothly than Silverlight, showing Flex is a more proven technology in RIA area. Flex Builder 3 is also an easy tool for average developers too.
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