Morning Session 1 - Intro to Silverlight

My indulgent session. I don't know that the lack of adoption will allow us to use Silverlight on the website, but I hear so many good things about it.

Morning Session 1 - Intro to Silverlight
Brian Peek

Dev and deployment easier than .NET
Problems with Silverlight:
1. No native printing support
2. No webcam/mic support
3. Popping outside of the sandbox is still limited
4. Linux support is very weak
5. Adoption is low (by FAR the biggest problem in our environment)

Couple optional tools: Expression Blend (for design) and XAMLPad (quick prototyping)

Very Flex-feeling at first glance. Compiles to xap instead of swf. Uses c# instead of ActionScript. Only thing is that I like that is different is the organization of the codebehind - Flex puts scripts pretty much wherever you want.
Silverlight 3 turned off the designer for performance reasons, or at least hid and disabled by default. That sucks.

Embedding media is REALLY easy. One tag, one prop. Amazing how simple that was.
Style definition billed as "like CSS", but looks really clunky in my opinion. But at least you don't have to worry about cross browser crap.

Can pull app out of browser window and even install to Start menu - Cool! Can't run disconnected like Adobe Air, but WAY easier to do. Basically just a config change to enable.

Nothing in this session that distinguishes Silverlight in any HUGE way from Flex, but carries all the same advantages of Flex for developers. Just have to watch adoption rates.