Later this month (June 25, to be exact), Rod Paddock will be visiting the Winnipeg .NET User Group and talking about Silverlight for Business Developers.

While at DevTeach, I had the opportunity to see an all-day presentation by Rod and Jim Duffy on Silverlight development. Their presentation covered a number of items, including how to style Silverlight applications, data access, etc. Basically, it gave a nice broad introduction to a technology that will be growing in use as it begins to mature. Now that Microsoft has announced that Beta 2 of Silverlight will be released soon, alongside of a "Go Live" license for Silverlight (which basically means that Silverlight applications can now be fully launched for clients and customers, but should still be made known that it is still in "Beta"), I foresee that many applications will grow to use it as time goes on.

That being said, not everyone will switch right away. Why? Well, after becoming immersed back in many technological areas of late, I have become introduced to a movement, if you will, called ALT.NET. One of the elements of this movement (and, by no means, is the only piece of the puzzle) is that one should not limit one's self to a specific technology or methodology - basically, "The right tool for the job". Currently, there are many a site out there (including sites that we do for our clients at work) that utilize large elements of Flash content. If it works and does the job, why change? Depends on what we want. If we want a little animation for marketing purposes, use Flash; almost everyone already has the player installed so why change it? However, if we want a Rich Internet Application (RIA), then we now have options with both Flash and Silverlight.

I can see, still, that Flash will continue to dominate at this time. Why? Lots of investment already by companies with employees already skilled in the technology. It works, it has had years to gain maturity in the industry... why break a good thing? However, it is not the most user friendly for a developer. ActionScript is similar in nature to JavaScript, which many a developer has said sucks (although fellow Canadian Justice Gray is not one of them). The largest complaint, and I have only worked with ActionScript in a very cursory manner, is that there is no true IDE in which to code for it (nothing native to the Adobe suite at any rate). (CAVEAT: Yes, I know that Adobe Flex is now out, but I have not used it and have not discussed it with anyone who has. It may be good, and is geared towards developers, but the inherit items within ActionScript may make using it more complex than it has to be.) There are some coming out, sure, but it's not as intuitive for a developer. And, when one is creating a RIA, understanding software development and how to effectively parse, utilize and manipulate data, is essential. I work with some extremely creative and highly intelligent individuals, but only a few of them grasp the "developer mindset". That being said, what a developer would make look like your standard button these guys can make look like gold to the end user. Different skill sets for different folks. And the rare occasion is that you find individuals who can really bridge that gap between developer and designer.

So, what about Silverlight? It uses 2 tools and multiple technologies. First, for designers, there is Expression Blend (to truly take advantage of Silverlight as it currently stands, you need the 2.5 Preview). This is the designer tool that is used in order to build Silverlight (or WPF) applications. It creates the same solution files that the development tools use, which is completely interchangeable. Speaking of, the developers in a Windows environment use Visual Studio 2008. This allows them to build applications using their favourite .NET compliant language. (Personally, though quite comfortable with VB.NET, I am using some of this time to learn C# more effectively and get back into {} and ;.) The same solution file can be passed back and forth, which is great, because then a developer can add actions and events to items within the Silverlight application in a similar way to how they do it with ASP.NET and WinForms - no new language, no new environment, just a comfortable starting point where you learn a new technology and apply it in a much more seamless manner.

So, after all this, what preparation? Before Rod speaks in Winnipeg, I want to give an Introduction to Silverlight presentation to my coworkers and colleagues. I want to encourage attendance to the event, but also want to get people looking into this system for building RIAs, which seem to be where many an application is going. I think that this is going to be key to have a proper evaluation and review of a competing technology, but also a technology that can be used side-by-side with other pieces. Who says you have to be exclusively Flash or exclusively Silverlight? (Although Adobe and Microsoft, respectively, would probably like that; but keep in mind that Microsoft has not yet migrated to all Silverlight yet either... I had a blog post I read on this that I just have to find...) EDIT: Link added to the previous content for information as to why MS has not fully migrated - it is the obvious.

The key thing here, though, is choice. And to get choice, you have to be informed. This is one way that I hope to contribute and drive people to look at this technology. Whether adopted or not, an informed decision cannot be made without investigation, testing, and most of all having fun in building stuff. That will make or break it for a company.

So I am back at Winnipeg now. DevTeach went well, as my previous posts imply. But the end of the conference was interesting too....

Friday Daytime

This was the Silverlight session from Rod Paddock and Jim Duffy. Was a great intro to all aspects of Silverlight and what it is capable of right now. Although I have seen a ton of writeups of bits and pieces here and there, I am the kind of person who needs to see something in action first to learn it - I cannot learn from a book alone. This was great, though - a brief but thorough overview, and teasers of where things may be going. Now, it was said that this is Microsoft's replacement/answer to Flash. If so, it has a bit of a ways to go (which is true - this is still a beta after all). But looking at it, here are some initial comments:

• There are only a limited number of fonts allowed. This is because if it is not cross-browser compatible (eg. the mouse wheel working) then it is not included. This does not bode well for those of us who have to use specific client fonts that cannot be given away to all customers. What about including embedded fonts, like Flash? That would be ideal for such a situation.
• How much of a subset is it of WPF? In Silverlight, labels are called Textblocks. In WPF it's still a label (at least according to Expression Blend). Could we not get some consistency there?
• It's a real pain to not be able to drag controls onto the form/grid/canvas in VS 2008. Yes, you can drop into the XAML, but it's not the same. A basic button could still be added by a developer who may or may not know XAML that well, but full designs should be done by a designer using Expression Blend (I fully agree there).

Overall, though, a great session.

Friday Night

Started out with drinks and dinner with my aunt and uncle who I hadn't seen in a year. So, one plate of chicken fingers and 5 Strongbows later, I got into a cab to meet up with a friend of mine for drinks. We found a martini place and went there and met up with a few more friends. 7 martinis (and one shot) later, we all proceeded to head out somewhere else. An Irish pub with a live band, which was great. BUT, another 5 beers (not Strongbow, but something comparable). After that... to bed, massively drunk, after like 5 glasses of water. Now, this meant getting back to the hotel around 5 AM... so no longer Friday night. And checkout was at 11 AM.

Saturday

Got up massively hung over. Got ready to check out of the hotel. Had a nice long shower and drank about 5 more glasses of water. Went down to the lobby, checked out, and went to the airport. Now, my flight didn't leave til 6 PM and this was around 11 AM. So, hung around TO airport all day (didn't have the strength or will to go ANYWHERE else). Hung out there, read a lot, and relaxed until my flight back.

So, the flight. Got on the plane. Found my seat and sat down as one is wont to do on a plane when you board. Well, most people at any rate. About 15 minutes after the plane was SUPPOSED to leave, we get an announcement apologizing for the delay but that there is a luggage issue. OK, so we sit back and relax. Then, we watch as passengers are moved from the back of the plane to first class. Again, sit back and relax. First class was empty when I boarded, and many of them are seniors so all appears well. I went back to my book. When I look up, 3 cops are walking past my chair. NOW I pay attention. They go to the back of the plane, where the individuals were moved up to first class from. There is a "discussion" with an individual back there. Not of North American heritage, as the accent (and eventually seeing him gave away) gave away. This was an individual whose accent I would place as being from India (this is due to the fact that i have some friends from India and the accent was very similar - not 100% certain, but fairly certain). They started escorting him off when he turned around and started to walk back to his seat. The officers behind him asked what he was doing and he said he needed his things, which the cops had in hand. He reluctantly turned around and went out with them, another officer with his bag and passport. About 5 minutes later, the individuals moved up front went back to their seats. The captain made an announcement, indicating that the individual refused to listen to the attendants, was not sitting down but was causing a ruccus (I think some other passengers complained), and was causing some red flags in them. It turns out that not listening to an attendant is an offense and gets you arrested. Now, keep in mind, WE HAVE NOT LEFT THE TERMINAL YET. So, an eventful show there right from the get-go. They offered us a free drinkn to compensate... but I was having none of that in my hung over state. Hot tea it was (also to soothe my throat).

But there we have it - another fun-filled, eventful conference attended. I can honestly say that the flight back was the most interesting flight I have ever had. At any rate, time to go back to reading and then crash and catch up on my insomnia-riddled trip.