Silverlight at the end of the tunnel
I was in Las Vegas this week attending the MIX' 07 conference along with the rest of the Toolkit team. My team mates, David Anson and Ted Glaza worked on the keynote demo that Scott Guthrie presented. The demo was written in managed code using the alpha version of the Silverlight platform that Microsoft showcased at MIX. It is a cool airline application composed of three core controls, Calendar, FlightPicker and Map. The source code is available for download from David's blog.
Silverlight will be a big leap in terms of the way we perceive the web. Essentially, with the managed code support, one no longer needs to be a web developer to write rich and interactive web applications. There is no need to worry about javascript, understand browser differences or css incompatibilities. It is all abstracted away from the developer who can focus on the end scenario without being distracted by these issues. All there is to see is XAML, XAML and more XAML and of course CSharp. I am up for that any day if I can get away from javascript. Why? Static language, with rich compiler support, intellisense, debugging support and a wide array of .NET apis to build on top of - need I say more? Our next project may have a lot more to do with Silverlight. Will it be a Silverlight Control Toolkit? May be. If you have ideas or suggestions around it do send me an email or leave a comment.
