Summary: Posted the slides for my recent, unconventional talk, “Move Your Silverlight Skills to the Web with KnockoutJS.” And a note about web plug-ins like Flash and Silverlight.
I spoke at the Twin Cities Silverlight User Group yesterday afternoon on a rather uncomfortable topic: Silverlight’s imminent irrelevance. I told Silverlight developers they should stop writing Silverlight code and move to the native web. 🙂 It definitely raised some eyebrows.
Fortunately, they didn’t throw rotten fruit at me; we actually had some great discussion back and forth about the software industry, Silverlight, and the future of the web. Overall, it was a blast! You can view my Rage Comic-infused slides online: Move Your Silverlight Skills to the Web with KnockoutJS
So why should Silverlight developers think about moving their skills to the web? See my earlier post, The Bell Tolls for Flash, and Silverlight Isn’t Far Behind. In a nutshell, we are witnessing in our industry a major shift away from web plugin technology like Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX. With the explosion of mobile computing, I believe this trend will grow, such that the only real platform for the web is the native web technologies: HTML, JavaScript, CSS.
If you’re a Silverlight dev, it’s time to move on. The war’s over and, for better or worse, web plugins lost. The native web is where it’s at.