85.) The Rise & Fall of Windows Silverlight

     Windows Silverlight was a development platform created by Microsoft that was designed to help developers create interactive web applications. It was first released in 2007 and was intended to be a competitor to Adobe Flash. Silverlight was built on top of the .NET Framework, which made it easy for developers to create web applications using familiar programming languages like C# and Visual Basic.

     The rise of Silverlight can be attributed to its ability to provide a rich, interactive user experience on the web. It was used to create a wide range of applications, including video players, games, and interactive data visualization. Silverlight's support for multimedia and its ability to run in a web browser made it a popular choice among developers.

     However, despite its initial success, Silverlight's popularity began to decline in the late 2000s. One of the main reasons for this was the rise of HTML5, which is a more modern web development platform that is supported by all major web browsers. HTML5 provides many of the same features that Silverlight does, such as support for multimedia and interactive content, but it does so in a way that is more widely supported and does not require a plugin to be installed.

     Another factor in Silverlight's decline was its relationship with XNA. XNA was a development platform created by Microsoft that was primarily used for creating games on the Xbox 360 and Windows platforms. XNA was built on top of the .NET Framework, just like Silverlight, and it was intended to be used in conjunction with Silverlight to create cross-platform web games. However, the XNA development platform was discontinued in 2013, which made it more difficult for developers to create games using Silverlight.

     In conclusion, Windows Silverlight was a popular development platform that was used to create interactive web applications. However, the rise of HTML5 and the discontinuation of XNA were significant factors in its decline. Despite this, Silverlight's legacy can still be seen in the many web applications that were created using it, and it continues to be used in some enterprise scenarios.