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Writing simple programming instructions is an easy task, but taking those simple tasks and putting them to work in a complete framework requires a lot of thinking and problem solving. Its also way easier to define solutions on a conceptual level than it is to take those concepts and implement them on a technology platform. That being said a solution is nothing without a plan, you cannot jump into writing programs without understanding what the end solution will be. I guess its all about commitment in the end, both from the concept and solution perspective.

Silverlight uses a pretty intense Java Script programming model, and I initially thought that with Silverlight 2.0 you could get away not having to deal with JavaScript, but I guess thats not entirely true. A lot of functionality is still accessible through JavaScript, and C#. On Friday I found a WordPress blog with a few great Silverlight tutorials. I managed to create my own skinned media player.

Getting ASP.NET 2.0 to run on IIS 6 is not just a case of installing the .NET redistributable package. You have to add the ASP.NET 2.0 web service extension under IIS 6.0 and then allow it to execute ASP.NET 2.0.

Another thing that some people seem to have confused is that ASP.NET 3.5 is not enabled under IIS. ASP.NET 3.5 is built on top of ASP.NET 2.0 and extends 2.0. There is no ASP.NET 3.5 under IIS. Its also interesting to note that the .NET 3.5 redistributable includes EVERYTHING. The 3.5 redistributable package is a hefty 197MB download and contains everything needed to build ASP.NET applications up to version 3.5.

Silverlight is a mime type that you have to add to IIS 6 for Silverlight websites to work, and configuring IIS 6 for Silverlight is as simple as adding three mime types.

Silverlight is not a very mature implementation but the technologies it uses for that implementation aren’t new or unknown. Sure, you have to download a plugin to view Silverlight content, but other than that the technologies that are used in Silverlight are not new. Flash uses ActionScript which closely resembles JavaScript and wonder above wonder Silverlight 1.0 and 1.1 uses JavaScript. Silverlight does use a technology set called XAML, but then again XAML looks and feels like XML. XML is not a new technology either. With Silverlight 2.0 you can use .NET Programming Languages such as C#. Again C# is not a new technology, and even though it has been around for less than 10 years its syntax is strikingly similar to Java and C++, which have been around for longer. Where is all of this coming from? Well in the week, Friday, to be exact I tested a Silverlight 1.x application on a local Intranet. I wanted to see what difficulties users might end up with if required to download the plugin. I sent the URL to a few developers and asked them to test it for me and one question that came back was “How long has this Silverlight technology been around?”, which got me thinking. Silverlight as an implementation is new, yes, but its underlying technology is not. There will be issues with the implementation, as with many technology sets, but the key for me as a developer is that I will be able to take my JavaScript, C#, XML and database skills and be able to build on them with this new technology. From a designer’s perspective Silverlight will not introduce any new technology sets either, because all the graphics elements used within WPF and Silverlight are Vector-based. The graphics elements are represented as XAML and interestingly enough you can export Adobe Illustrator files as XAML and import that directly into Expression Blend and Visual Studio 2008. Personally I think that shows great interoperability.

The point though is that in today’s development environment technology maturity may only point to an implementation specific issue, not a technology subset. The technology subsets that an implementation is focussed on will in all likelihood be a mature technology already.

I have been thinking a bit and there are a few reasons I like Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology.

1. One reason is that the Silverlight could potentially make the need for Windows Media Player on a host machine obsolete. During the week I removed Windows Media Player from a machine and tested a Silverlight application on it that uses video.
2. Silverlight is easy to host. You simply add a mime type to IIS. You can find a guide to doing that here.
3. Silverlight has a Linux implementation called Moonlight.
4. Integration with Visual Studio 2008. This is an important feature for an web/application developer because your C#/VB.NET skills can be used to develop and enhance Silverlight applications. XAML plays an important role here and bridges the gap between design and development significantly.

How many sites actually use Silverlight? Silverlight is a Microsoft technology that allows you to create rich and dynamic content for the web. The same Silverlight applications can also be used as desktop applications with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). With that in mind I Googled for sites that actually use Silverlight in a live production environment. I already knew of the Hardrock Memorabilia site that uses the Deep Zoom feature. I showed this to some people at work and they were amazed, as was I. So check it out, but be warned you will be required to install a plugin.

So are there other sites that use Silverlight? And if so, what is the quality thereof. I found a site called Nibbles Tutorials which is done entirely with Silverlight. They also have tutorials and samples that you can look at. I found a few more examples on this blog. This site uses Silverlight in a way that allows you to page through books, which is not that new. This site shows a jeep of some kind that you can rotate. Another site allows you to create a valentine’s day card. A museum also used Silverlight and the Deep Zoom effect. Vertigo are the guys who developed the Hardrock Cafe Memorabilia website. They have some Silverlight content as well including a slideshow presentation. Pyramid fashion also use Silverlight.

I attended the Microsoft Mix Essentials ’08 event on the 26th of June 2008 and got two pieces of trial software, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Microsoft Expressions Web. Today I am installing Visual Studio, and it’s taken 20 minutes so far to install. It’s a 2.9 GB install!!

The features I am most excited about is support for Silverlight and WPF as well as intellisense for Javascript and CSS. There are also a few server controls that Brad Abrams demonstrated that I am very excited. One server control in particular allows you to specify the type of markup that should appear in a server control instead of just accepting (or being forced) to live with the markup provided. Gridview controls use tables for layout, and I am pretty sure DataList controls do as well, and the simple fact is that tables are not always desirable.

I attended the Mix Essentials 2008 event at Canal Walk (Cape Town, South Africa) today and there were quite a few things that interested me. There were five speakers at the event:

1. David Ives – Developer and Platform Strategy Group for Microsoft in South Africa – Microsoft
2. Brad Abrams – Group Program Manager for the UI Framework and Services Team – Microsoft
3. Michael Koester – Designer Marketing Manager for Middle East and Africa and Central and Eastern Europe – Microsoft
4. Julian Harris – Conchango
5. David Pugh-Jones – Microsoft

The event was split into two tracks, a developer track and a designer track, but it generally focussed on Silverlight, and more specifically on two software packages, Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Studio, and even more specifically it introduced XAML as a common way for these packages to share content between them. XAML, Extensible Application Markup Language is an XML-like language that defines graphic elements in a human readable form that can be used in vector-imaging programs as well as Visual Studio 2008. This gives designers the flexibility to design interfaces without having to worry about programmers not being able to replicate their designs in a programming environment. Julian Harris demonstrated that you can export files from Adobe Illustrator into XAML format and import that XAML into Visual Studio 2008. XAML is also used in the Expression Studio range of products which includes amongst other two interesting products:

• Expression Blend
• Expression Design

Expression Blend is, almost like Adobe’s Flash Studio, which is an IDE that allows you to create WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight applications. WPF is a technology that allows developers (and designers) to create applications that give users a better user experience (UX). Contemporary windows applications generally use square (often mundane) windows, whereas WPF applications allow designers to implement creative graphics into the interface. Rounded corners and transparent backgrounds for instance are used, and because Expression Blend can read and understand XAML, none of a designer’s creative flair is lost. The developer no longer has any excuses to develop interfaces that do not exactly meet the designer’s design.

How do you decide when to use a Content Management System (CMS) and when to develop the content yourself? The answer lies in your marketing strategy and specifically your strategy for web-based content. Do you know who the intended target audience for your strategy is?

In some cases it might prove a better bet to develop content from scratch, such as a brochure-ware type of website. Brochure-ware websites generally have a very static nature and are used to market a product or service in a very visual way. Such websites often use technologies such as Adobe Flash to promote that product or service. Adobe Flash can accomplish animations and effects that cannot be replicated with AJAX or any standard web development technologies. Flash has a few limitations as well, but for impact Flash can be used very effectively. Microsoft also recently released their Silverlight technology, but it might take some time for Silverlight to be adopted as widely as Flash. Both technologies, however, incur some cost because their development environments are not free or inexpensive. Adobe Flash requires an Integrated Development Environment as does Silverlight. For Adobe Flash you may require one of the CS3 range of software packages that include Flash and for Silverlight you might want to look at buying Visual Studio 2008. Both products also tend to force you into using other proprietary software as well which also costs money. Developing Silverlight applications require Windows Server software to run those applications, which costs more money as well.