Random

Patrick Cauldwell and I have just completed presenting two one day deep-dive sessions on what we felt are practical Silverlight topics. After thinking about it, I have decided that over the next few days I will share some of my demos with my editorializing.

In my first presentation, I covered Styling, Skinning and Custom Controls, and in my second presentation I covered Silverlight/browser integration. 

The first topic I will be addressing will be "How to use Silverlight as a replacement for Javascript libraries".

As I complete each topic, I will add them to the following table of contents:

• Silverlight as a Javascript Library Replacement

I would also invite you to contact me at shaun@sftsrc.com if you have specific Silverlight (or other) topics that you would like me to consider addressing.

After sitting through half a day of MIX07, I have finally seen something that crystallized my disquiet about AJAX.

Having seen the tortured workflow involved in developing any substantial Javascript-based web app and wondered about a whole new class of as-yet-undiscovered client-side Javascript attacks on AJAX applications, I have been loathe to advocate for wholesale AJAX adoption.

What made me see the light was Silverlight. I had been mildly interested in Silverlight, and knew that a cross-platform version of the CLR was involved. But what put it over the top for me was seeing remote, interactive debugging of a Silverlight application running on Safari using Visual Studio.NET on Vista in C#.

Also, although you do not need any Microsoft infrastructure on the server in order to serve up Silverlight applications, the possibilities of integration with ASP.NET seem really exciting.

OK...so less of the marketing hyperbole. Certainly AJAX is going to continue to be important, but... there really is a new kid on the block.

 Check it out