ANN: Microsoft reveals new silverlight features and services

[woo]

for those living in caves - silverlight is microsoft's flash killer, running on windows and mac. They announced a bunch of stuff but to me the most important is that not only is 1.0 in beta but 1.1 with CLR support is in alpha. Yes, that's right. You can write .net apps, JIT'ed, against silverlight, that run in safari on mac.

Obligatory links:

Scott Guthrie on Channel 9 (http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=304508)

News roundup from Mix 07 (http://news.com.com/Microsofts+latest+spin+on+Web+apps/2009-1012_3-6180240.html?tag=nefd.lede)

Thoughts? As a .net developer, I'm stoked. Somebody from the java camp please, say, "we've already got that!". All I've got to say is 3 words - four megabyte distributable. :)

-Andrew Douglas
https://theoreticalgames.com

[electronicStar]

That's a huge e-penis you've got there for sure:)....

[Bad Sector]

All I've got to say is 3 words - four megabyte distributable. :)

So, it doesn't require the absolute latest of the .NET Framework 3.0 (50MB + 4MB download) or even the previous .NET Framework 2.0 (22MB + 4MB download) ? :-)

And since when .NET is supported in Macs?

However, i should mention here that i found it strange that something like this didn't appeared for .NET all these years.

EDIT: I searched the Mono project's blogs (http://www.go-mono.com/monologue/) for some bits of information on how to implement Silverlight in Linux and one of them, who had first-hand experience with the technology (first hand here means that he saw it in a real life presentation :-P) said two important things:
a) It wouldn't be hard to implement it.
b) It basically is a <canvas>-like thing with code written in the browser's JavaScript engine.
c) The video playback engine (YouTube?) will be hard to implement.

Quotting the blog:
Silverlight is basically:

* An object oriented canvas, this canvas can be controlled trough the DOM by the containing web page.
* The contents of the Canvas can be preloaded with a XAML-based description. The XAML supported is a subset of the full WPF/Avalon supported by .NET 3.0.
* So far it offers no built-in scripting, instead it relies on the browser's Javascript engine.
* It supports video playback using the highly proprietary VC-1 formats.
* Silverlight is cross platform in the "Windows and Apple are supported" way, no support for Linux has been announced. So it is even more limiting than Flash.

[Uesugi]

I don't know what Channel 9 is, but I have rarely seen such a fanboyish interview.

Not one mention of Flash in 30+ minutes of talking about how this new plugin is going to make Javascript obsolete and allow for new vector applications that are "impossible" today...

The only interesting bit of info for me is that apparently the plugin includes a Python interpreter.

[soniCron]

Channel 9 is produced by Microsoft. :p

[woo]

So, it doesn't require the absolute latest of the .NET Framework 3.0 (50MB + 4MB download) or even the previous .NET Framework 2.0 (22MB + 4MB download) ? :-)


Correct, the 4mb download contains a version of the runtime that has the 2d features of WPF, LINQ, etc. etc. but it's been pared down to be what you need for multi-platform client apps so it doesn't include stuff like COM interop, a server-based garbage collector, etc. You can apparently use c#, vb.net, javascript, python and ruby, though I'm sure other languages like boo will most likely be possible one way or another as well.

Apps currently targeting the full framework need to be compiled against the silverlight framework in order to run in silverlight, but apps targeting silverlight can run without issue on the full framework.

You can do cross-platform debugging using Visual Studio - you run the silverlight app in a safari browser on the mac and can debug it in visual studio on your pc.

Let's see - you get the web services infrastructure so you can access web services using strongly typed classes, just like you can in .net apps today.

And I've used and really like the design environment for XAML called Expression Blend. It's not free but it's a great environment for designers. And because it uses the same project system as Visual Studio and because of the way XAML is structured, it's easy to integrate designers into your development life cycle however you want. For example, a developer can throw a couple of controls on a form, name them and code against them in visual studio and then a designer can go in to Blend and pretty them up, add time-line based animations, etc., test it from inside Blend and you're done. Or the whole process can go in reverse.

I'll stop gushing now :)
-Andrew

[bignobody]

Funny how anything touted by the marketing people as "<Product X> Killer" never are...

[Bad Sector]

Well it has Microsoft behind it and with Microsoft being Microsoft, you can bet they'll put the runtime in the next Vista SP so people won't have to download anything.

Sure, being the developer of the most used operating system is a nice way to kill all competition :-).