Silverlight on borrowed time, but when one door closes...

It was 2006 when I worked at Microsoft's main campus and started seeing hints of a mysterious thing called "Jolt." I soon learned it was the codename for what would become Silverlight, a big first step into a world dominated by Adobe Flash. SL1 was heavily dependent on JavaScript (which I avoid like the plague to this day), but when I learned that SL2 leveraged C# everything changed.

I devoted the next few years of my life to Silverlight. Buddy Knavery was the new platform's first point-and-click adventure game. Literally thousands of people around the world gave it a spin when it was published on Microsoft's Silverlight Showcase. It was exhilirating to say the least and it propelled me to develop more projects.

I never made a dime from my games and nobody twisted my arm to devote so much time to their development. I did it because there was finally a technology that enabled me to bring my ideas to life. Everything was so smooth and intuitive, working in Visual Studio and Expression Blend, blissfully pushing toward the payoff of releasing more Silverlight magic to the public.

Even as SL3 came around, the discussion of Silverlight was still mostly limited to the developer community. The average Joe still had no idea what Silverlight was, and while that was frustrating I was convinced people would eventually see the (silver) light. Even if some were hellbent on dismissing SL as a mere Flash competitor, I knew the real scoop. It was a bona fide heavyweight, something capable of serving the enterprise as well as video-streaming junkies and casual gamers.

The sun also sets

By the time SL4 was released I sensed there were problems. Don't get me wrong, a swath of developers were still excited about SL and my love for it certainly hadn't dwindled. But I personally thought Microsoft seemed lackadaisical in pushing its own product. Silverlight was becoming the Amiga of web technologies, a superior product that had no promotion to back it up.

Participation in the official silverlight.net forums was lackluster at best. Many threads were stagnant, some flat-out ignored, some with legitimate gripes that often fell on deaf ears. Worse yet, I submitted Buddy Knavery II to the Silverlight Showcase and heard absolutely nothing, which I thought was peculiar considering the sequel was much stronger than the original. Something was wrong with this picture.

Perhaps the biggest problem of all: there was no effective way of delivering and monetizing Silverlight applications. There were a few home-grown attempts by the developer community (silverarcade.com as an example), but nothing was getting any traction. At the end of the day, if your app wasn't featured on the Silverlight Showcase you were pretty much screwed in terms of recognition.

The door slowly closes on Silverlight as a plugin

I wasn't too shocked when rumors of Silverlight's impending death began to circulate. When developers caught wind that Microsoft was shifting its focus to HTML5 and JavaScript, the backlash in the SL community was strong (hooray, a thread on silverlight.net that showed some enthusiasm!). And who could blame them for being upset? Just as Microsoft was releasing a beta version of SL5, rumors were swirling that the upcoming Build conference would spell out SL's unfortunate fate. Talk about mixed signals.

To summarize the implications of Build: the Silverlight plugin isn't officially dead, but when Windows 8 is released it will be relegated to the Desktop side of the Metro/Desktop split. If the Desktop designation is confusing, keep in mind that SL is a plugin that runs in a host browser that sits under the Desktop umbrella. The important thing to remember is that Microsoft is putting all its eggs in the Metro basket and the barrier between Desktop and Metro cannot be crossed. Since Silverlight won't exist in the Metro space, you can do the math.

And one door begins to open

Just when I'd begun to lose all hope, it turns out all those years of developing in XAML (the UI markup language for Silverlight) won't be in vain. Metro apps will not be restricted to HTML5 + JavaScript, which is great since I'm spoiled by XAML and view HTML5/JS as a major regression. You have the option to build Metro apps with a new variation of XAML, one which isn't fully compatible with WPF/SL because that'd just make too much sense.

The good news doesn't stop there — once you've built a Metro app you can submit it to the Windows Store for purchase and installation on Windows 8 devices. Desktops, tablets, whatever. So it looks like Silverl... er, Metro developers will finally have a mechanism to reap the rewards from their efforts.

The future of Checksum Labs

I'll admit, with the recent Silverlight news I've been licking my wounds. But after installing Windows 8 Developer Preview and realizing what's possible in the near future, this could be a gamble that pays off for everyone. It's true that Microsoft pissed off a lot of developers by pulling the rug out from under them (ironically they'll be counting on those same developers to help kick-start the Metro marketplace), but nobody forced me to invest so much time in Silverlight. Since XAML is still an option in the Metro world, I'm willing to take one more leap of faith.

To be blunt, the apps hosted here are likely on borrowed time. RAGE might as well be DOA, Buddy Knavery might be resurrected as a Metro app if it's feasible. The bottom line is I can't afford to invest more time in the Desktop/plugin world and I'll be neck-deep in Metro going forward. What I do know for sure is this: Checksum Labs will continue to exist and it'll continue to pay homage to retro gaming. The focus just might shift to Metro app development in the future.