@Dave – HTML5 looks very promising and it certainly appears the need for third-party plugin’s will be reduced if some key things happen. For example, if Youtube switches to HTML5 video as their default means of playback, that’ll be huge. The adoption rate of Flash may decline significantly.

Of course HTML5 isn’t quite fully supported in all the major browsers just yet. And there are a couple things I’m not sure about with HTML5. Will it be possible to handle webcams / microphones? And what about full-screen mode? That’s something that both Flash and Silverlight 4 can do, which is kind of a big deal.

Beyond that perhaps one of the most appealing aspects of Silverlight & Flash is the ability to build Desktop (or out-of-browser) apps on the same technology. In other words, you can build a Flash app and distribute basically the same app in Adobe Air for the desktop. Or you can build a Silverlight app and run it out of browser even easier.

Also in both Flash & Silverlight there is some extremely rich functionality built into the runtime. Often it’s the kind of thing that can also be done in HTML5, but it’s not built-in. That means that you’ll be building this stuff from scratch or tapping into (potentially very large) js libraries. It’s a compromise no doubt and as always I contend that your choice of tools should depend on the nature of the app you’re building.

All the good browsers support HTML5 and SVG out of the box. I can achieve everything I can think of using that combination – I see no technical advantage to either Silverlight or Flash. They’re both unnecessary in the emerging web world.

When I can target open standards which are clearly on the ascent, why would I commit my talent for design to a proprietary product that’s encumbered by patent concerns and is completely tied to a relatively low tech platform (Windows) that’s in what appears to be in gradual but inexorable decline?

Silverlight is my favorite new technology to work with. I’ve always enjoyed the GUI side of things in addition to the detailed programming I do every day.

But Silverlight had nothing to do with my interest to dip my feet in both worlds, it simply gave me a new outlet. It gives me the flexibility to focus on the design and development side of things without worrying about all the differences between browsers, operating systems, etc. Much like Flash, it’s done an excellent job of abstracting the most annoying incompatibilities away, and just does what I tell it to do and looks how I want it to look. But unlike Flash (or Flex), making Silverlight do what I tell it to do is just plain easier.

I’m one of those developers that would love to learn design, and I see a HUGE hole in the market for a book and/or website targeted to ME and those like me. Someone could build a whole business on content targeted to teaching developers how to design… (HINT HINT)

@MossyBlog isnt that a Devigner???

@MossyBlog Whats the theme on that site ? It’s almost exactly what I’m looking for.

@stuartshields i will frame it and tell all who visit, Stuart “Arms like a tree trunk” Shields once visited thine site hehe (thx! )

@simsod doesn’t matter as no matter which way, the code will be nicely formatted artistic ASCII like comments

@MossyBlog Haha, I´ll try that , But the question is, are the result coders who can design or designers who can code?