What’s new This Week in Silverlight
Microsoft’s PDC Conference – Where New Technologies are (or are not) Announced
- Erik thought it was weird that there weren’t any *big* announcements at the conference. There were some Azure announcments, but they hardly seemed to justify the conference. This is just bizarre.
- Microsoft didn’t talk about Silverlight on the desktop (they did talk a lot about Silverlight on the phone…), and the conclusion drawn was that Silverlight on the desktop is… ready for this? Dead. Or maybe not.
- Microsoft is changing strategy on Silverlight. This is a good thing. They used to recommend Silverlight for basically every web site. See the MSDN site for an example. Yikes. The fact that Microsoft is now recommending Silverlight for applications on the web is a pretty great thing. It’s like using a hammer for what it’s good for (hammering nails) rather than *everything under the sun*. This is Silverlight Tour 101 by the way.
- According to Joe Stegman (head of Silverlight development), there are 250+ developers working on Silverlight. wowza.
- Silverlight V.Next is in production: Bob Muglia is on record as saying, “We haven’t yet publically announced a launch date for the next release of Silverlight, but we’ll talk more about it in the coming months.”
- The problem is that Microsoft doesn’t say when a technology is dead (think Linq2SQL, etc.). This makes people nervous. And rightly so.
- Scott Barnes has made predictions that are really interesting
- HTML5 will get desktop hooks (true!). Just watch the PDC keynote.
- Silverlight will suffer a Weekend-At-Bernies style death (perhaps unlikely. see above).
- Erik andKelly think HTML5 is great. It just isn’t up for writing the kind of apps we’re currently writing, but that doesn’t stop it from being great.
- Erik rants about a Western that may (but probably doesn’t) exist.
Shawn Wildermuth has a great take on the controversy.
Jeremy Likeness has a great take as well.
Guest Hosts
Brian Henderson is a Silverlight Designer/Architect and INETA Community Champion. A few of the activities Brian can be found participating are flying (pilot), kayaking, hiking, or just taking video/photos.
Kelly White is an independent Silverlight Consultant. He previously lead the PDXUX.Net user group, and now runs the Portland Silverlight User Group with Erik Mork. Kelly has presented at user groups and code camps throughout the northwest on both Silverlight and WPF.
Music kindly provided by YACHT.
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