flex vs silverlight for student

I am a student of computer science and am interested in learning development of R开发者_JAVA技巧IAs. So which among silverlight and flex is more suitable for me and y?

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Silverlight is the very accessible. You can develop Silverlight applications using free tooling provided by Microsoft in via its "Express" range of tools. Also if you use C# as part of your work you'll be learning a language which has wider uses. ActionScript on the other will teach quite a few aspects of Javascript yet it also has many features that are perculiar to its slant of Javascript and only really useful in the flex context.

However have you considered HTML5 as a platform for RIA? Whilst being embyronic and almost non-existant tooling it may also be a contender for RIA delivery in the furture.

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Personally, I think you'd be silly to ignore Silverlight. It's going from strength to strength and is growing a lot faster than Flash. As Anthony rightly points out, businesses that would never have considered Flash are turning to Silverlight for replacing both Web and Desktop apps.

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Flex with ActionScript is better than Silverlight. You can find a range of tutorials and application for Flex in the web.

HTML 5 has come, but still you will find a range of browsers not supporting it fully. You may end up frustrated with most of your clients in I.E 6.0

My Bet is

Flex with PHP OR Flex with JAVA

Could really enhance your programming skills and career growth to a peak.

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I would say that flash+flex is much better than html5 (which is too slow for now) and silverlight (which was a big disapointment for me, a big BUM at the launch and that's all)

Check out http://flex.org/ for some nice RIA tools, and maybe that can help you more in taking your decision.