WPF vs Silverlight 3.0

Question

Silverlight 3.0 beta has just been announced at Microsofts Mix Conference in Las Vegas.

Two features of the new beta are 3D-graphics and the ability to run applications outside of the browser, which to me seemed to be two of the major features that WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) previously offered over silverlight.

I am currently evaluating WPF and Silverlight for possible use in our companies future development activity, and this announcement has left me confused as to the intended direction of these two UI technologies and why I would choose one over the other.

Has anyone implemented a new application using WPF recently, and if so, what drove you to that decision? Given the announced changes to silverlight, Would your decision have changed had you made it now, and if not, why?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The biggest difference I find is the asynchronous model you have to adopt in your Silverlight application. It does seems like an advantage (and it can be), but it does make life very difficult sometimes.

There are also some limitations that can be a real challenge like the absence of print support.

I would recommend Silverlight over WPF when:

- There is no need for best possible performance (graphics included) - Can get around the absence of print support (it will come, we just don't know when) - Camera/Microphone support is not needed - Can tolerate the assync app/development model - Can tolerate limitations on WCF (no support for WS-Security at this point) - There is no need to store huge amount of data on the client. - There is no need to direct integration with client side applications like Office. - Has a server to host your application