Silverlight on Linux / Mac

Question

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?

Answer 1

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!

Answer 2

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).