When I talk to people about Blazor, they often have the same question: Is Blazor Silverlight 2.0? What most developers want to know with this question is if Blazor will be around only for a short period.
Is it worthwhile investing time and effort to learn Blazor?
Let’s take a look at it: Is Blazor Silverlight 2.0?
Commonalities between Blazor and Silverlight
Let’s start by agreeing on what similarities between Blazor and Silverlight exist. Both technologies are developed by Microsoft and allow us to use the .NET platform to create web applications.
Both technologies share the same core idea: Instead of using JavaScript, we can use C# as the programming language to create web applications.
You might have expected more similarities, but there is not much more to add.
Difference between Blazor and Silverlight
Now, let’s talk about why Blazor is different than Silverlight. There are two significant differences between Blazor and Silverlight. Let’s tackle them one-by-one.
First of all, it’s been a long time since the lifetime of Silverlight and the release of Blazor. Silverlight 1 was released in 2007, and the last version, Silverlight 5, was released in 2011.
Blazor was first officially announced in 2018 and released in September 2019. In the meantime, devices and the web itself have massively changed.
Second, Silverlight used a browser plugin to bring the .NET platform into the browser. Like Flash or Java, Silverlight had to be installed on the device to make .NET available in the browser.
Blazor, on the other hand, is based on open web standards. There are no proprietary formats involved. It depends on the hosting model on how Blazor applications run, but it’s all based on open web standards.
Myth: Microsoft Killed Silverlight
There is a wide-spread myth that Microsoft killed Silverlight. That’s one of the reasons why people are hesitant to put their effort and time into learning Blazor.
Let’s take a closer look at why Silverlight wasn’t a viable option anymore. As I explained before, Silverlight was using a browser plugin to provide .NET support for Silverlight applications.
Apple, more specifically, Steve Jobs, decided that IPhones and IPads will no longer allow plugins or extensions to their browsers. It was not a randomly made decision. Let me explain in more detail.
When the iPhone came to the market, Flash and Java were used on many websites. HTML 5 was still in development. When HTML 5 was released and implemented in the browsers, developers could use the new features instead of relying on Java or Flash for animations, video, and other interactive website elements.
Flash, in particular, was well-known for its security issues and its high battery consumption. Both were unacceptable to Steve Jobs at that time.
That is the reason he made the decision to drop support for browser plugins for all his devices. He wanted to have full control over all of his desktop computers and mobile devices.
As we talked about before, Silverlight made use of the same architecture as Flash or Java. It used a browser plugin. The consequence was that Silverlight would not be able to run on Apple devices anymore.
The whole purpose of Silverlight being a cross-platform technology was gone. For Microsoft, it made no sense to invest money into a technology that could not achieve its goal. That’s why Silverlight came to an end sooner than expected.
Source: http://www.appvnext.com/blog/2020/2/18/is-blazor-for-everyone
What Do We Learn from This Story?
Microsoft learned a lot from this story. First of all, ASP.NET and later ASP.NET Core do not require any browser plugins to run. Also, Microsoft decided to only use open web standards for Blazor.
As long as the browsers support those open web standards, they will also support Blazor.
Even if Blazor disappears, you will be able to transfer a lot of knowledge that you gain by learning Blazor to other technologies. HTML and CSS are technologies that are around for 20+ years, and there is no sign that they will disappear anytime soon.
Also, C# is a very popular programming language that can be used for building many different types of applications, not only Blazor web applications.
I hope this insight allows you to see that Blazor has nothing to do with Silverlight and that Blazor is a viable alternative to JavaScript web frameworks in 2020. You don’t need to be afraid of investing time and effort into learning Blazor.
Let me know what video you’d like to see next on the channel in the comments below. Thanks for watching and see you in the next.
