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SIlverlight still lives

Experts, I know that many of you may have just clicked on this link out of sheer disbelief after reading the title. But I have been contacted by a site that still has Silverlight lurking in the shadows.

On the positive side, they want to replace the Silverlight. On the negative side they want to replace Silverlight. So I'd like input from what can I use in place of the Silverlight.

I am told that many of the functions using Silverlight are already broken and that a site rewrite is out of the question. So w/o specific details I'd like to replace the Silverlight code with html5 if I can get away with that.

While I am a developer, for this particular project I would only be the project manager. So anything you can share that would be helpful would be appreciated. I'd like to hear what potholes I should avoid , or you think I am crazy for doing this (or your hero), (Or that you are waiting for me to fail miserably because it will build character). OR perhaps you think I should run, while I can, lol.

Points awarded for comments that help me know what I am walking into here. How can I tell how much Silverlight is being utilized? Should we start remarking out code where SL doesn't work anyway and take this battle page by page? Do you know of any helpful tools?

Anyways, Thank you in advance for your help.

-Fox

David Johnson, CD

I am told that many of the functions using Silverlight are already broken and that a site rewrite is out of the question.

A Site rewrite is needed here

Chinmay Patel

Hi Fox,

First and foremost, create a page by page mapping table, list functions/features implemented in Silverlight and ask one of your Dev Leads to map it to latest tech (Blazor - maybe) - HTML5 / JS UI libraries.

I do no think there is anything that CAN NOT be done by today's modern APIs but then :P I have no idea what is the scope of the Silverlight in your project.

I am bit surprised that someone would keep an entire app in Silverlight for such a long time after it was announced long back that it will go out of support in 2019 but the world is full of surprises.

And to tell you the truth, I have had my fair share of Silverlight incidents in past and I would want to avoid it as much as possible.

Regards,

Chminmay.

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John Tsioumpris

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the_b1ackfox

ASKER

All before I walk the walk of "You break it you fix it", I'd like to say thank you for your input. It has help solidify some of the thoughts I have had around this..(these) issue(s). The client won't go for a site rewrite, but the old platform definitely needs to go. So David, I have to move this forward, and I think the worst of this revolves around 1 or 2 antiquated DLL calls. Chinmay, mapping I think is going to be a definite part of the process. And I feel you about wanting to avoid the Silverlight, lol..

And John, one of the first things I have asked for were the SQL calls (still have yet to receive them though, lol) I do agree about the wild west analogy too. I have already figured out an important part of the journey (Where we need to go), still working through the steps of the day to day itinerary.

Thank you for the input thus far, very grounding.

Fox

David Johnson, CD

Silverlight has many many features … custom controls, but these are primarily visual effects .. all you need to redo is the ui elements the stuff from the backend and the business logic remain the same. I went through this pain a long time ago with frontpage sites.

the_b1ackfox

ASKER

Thank you all for your input!