Saturday, January 26, 2008

Why I'm Excited About Silverlight - Part 1

At this point, I feel confident in saying there is a lot of excitement swirling around Silverlight 2.0. I think it is to the point where individuals are counting down the days until Mix08. The timing of this conference will coincide with the next public release of Silverlight 2.0 and a non-commercial go live license. Because of this, I think that now is as good of a time as any to explain one reason why I am so excited about Silverlight.

Why I am Excited About Silverlight

I think there are a lot of individuals who are excited about the rich user interface possibilities created by Silverlight. At the same time, I believe there are a lot of individuals jazzed about the .NET features we have started to see with the Silverlight 1.1 Alpha. This is where I come in. I hope to provide a simple explanation of why this is such a big deal.

Before you read any further, I want you to answer the following question: "What is .NET?"

Your response to this question will probably determine where you fit on Scott Barnes' RIA Role Spectrum. Personally, I am slightly more to the developer side, however, I would definately consider myself an RIA Architect. Because of this, both aspects are important to me. So, when I'm asked "What is .NET?", I have to have a response that fits both sides of my personality (sounds like a frosted mini-wheats commercial). Well, I believe that .NET is about two and exactly two things.
  1. Integration and
  2. Innovation
I refer to these as the two I's of .NET and these are why I want to be associated with it. I think if you understand that .NET is about these two things, it is pretty easy to get excited about Silverlight. The reason why is because the value in learning the .NET components of Silverlight go far beyond user interface scenarios. It really enters the realm of desktop applications, system-wide services, workflow applications, and many others (this one is really cool).

I realize this post isn't very deep. However, my writing juices are focused elsewhere. I posted this simply to start some discussions. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. In regards to comments on this blog, they are moderated. However, I will publish ANYTHING, positive or negative, that is related to this post. I have recently rejected comments related to a "FREE PS3" and "Testing". I want to make sure that everyone feels welcome to post their opinions. However, it has to be relevant to this post to respect everyone's time.

Thank you for reading! kick it on DotNetKicks.com
Chad

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi,

well, let me participate in the discussion ;)

i am personaly looking forward to silverlight 2.0. i think silverlight is a great technology, it is just at the very beginning of it's 'live'

i hope they will improove a lot. i've been working with 1.1 since they released it and there is still a lot to do.

i am sure that we have really long discussions when we see the beta and what changes it might bring.

the most important thing for me in silverlight is the possibility to code really cool .net/wpf applications for the web. i think it brings web development and windows development closer together then any other technology before ...

just my thoughts on it ...

Anonymous said...

hi,

well, let me participate in the discussion ;)

i am personaly looking forward to silverlight 2.0. i think silverlight is a great technology, it is just at the very beginning of it's 'live'

i hope they will improove a lot. i've been working with 1.1 since they released it and there is still a lot to do.

i am sure that we have really long discussions when we see the beta and what changes it might bring.

the most important thing for me in silverlight is the possibility to code really cool .net/wpf applications for the web. i think it brings web development and windows development closer together then any other technology before ...

just my thoughts on it ...

- Mario Meir-Huber

Anonymous said...

Hello and great explanation of .NET, I've committed it to memory now :)

The reason I find Silverlight so exciting is it's ability to simplify the creation of amazing User Interfaces. Far easier and more expressive than what's possible with traditional DHTML/AJAX.

I can create an amazing web application that works across all the major browsers and only having to write a couple of lines of traditional D/HTML...

Unless your a .net developer you'll never truly appreciate this fact!

PS. I like to consider myself a RIA Architect thou I do tend to lean towards the designer side more and more

Scott Barnes said...

Love this post! ;)

I'm a RIA Philosopher / Evangelist now days ... i'm not on the spectrum anymore hehe..

-
Scott Barnes
RIA Philosopher
Microsoft.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you on the enthusiasm about Silverlight 2.0 and .NET in general. But I think the main reason of my love is not the 2 I. They has an important role but I think the primary reason is the simplicity. I love how .NET reduce to simplicity the most complicated things so I've not to concern about things but in the implementation in my RIA apps. (but not only ria).

Anonymous said...

I'm putting together feature list for a large project as I'm writing this comment, and I pray to God SL can handle it otherwise I loose my neck or something else ;-)

Now why would I take such a risk, because with my risk calculation, SL is the best thing I can go for.

Crossing all my ten fingers...

Anonymous said...

>>Why I'm Excited About Silverlight - Part 1<<

Chad, where is part 2? ;-)

Peter Sedik said...

So to sum it up, why you are excited about silverlight? ;)

Chad Campbell said...

Hi Ben,

I hope to post Part 2 this weekend. No promises, but this is a goal I have.

Anonymous said...

Back when ASP.NET was first released, I remember building user controls and wishing there was an easy way to integrate with Flash. Basically, I wanted to have more power in the browser, but I wasn't willing the invest the time learning a totally different technology. This is why I'm excited about Silverlight 2.0.