On the same note, a project manager who I have worked closely with on many Flash projects emailed me the other day and said: 'We can move on with that Flash job now. I've just finished my first Silverlight project - it was hell'. I'll have to dig deeper and find out what happened.

What I distill from these people's experiences is something along the lines of 'Silverlight is potentially quite good, but it's not good yet'. At the same time I see many people on several mailing lists (some of them Microsoft employees) announcing Silverlight as the next best thing since sliced bread, but how many of those people have actually put in the time that Jesse has? Are those people fit to comment? Or can the success of a technology really be bought by throwing vast amounts of money at it? Would the Flash Platform be where it is now had it not been nurtured over time and grown organically? .NET I hear you say - I don't buy that argument. Yes it has been around for a while but never been leveraged in the form of a RIA platform. Silverlight is the new kid on the block, and it'll have to earn its respect. Pointing at the big cousin alone won't stick.

I'll give Silverlight a shot sometime, but not just yet, and not if it means booting up that Vista box again. Please don't make me do that.