Burningbird

I've been posting my travels with Silverlight development. Getting 1.0 development set up under OS X is easy. Just unzip until you can't unzip any more. Then fire up a text editor.

There is no 1.1 development on PowerPC Apple computers. The installer will happily put all the files in /Library/internet plug-ins/Silverlight.plugin, and the package is marked as a universal binary. But it crashes on my g4 iBook every time. Interestingly enough, I can run 1.0 samples just fine with the 1.1 plugin installed on my iBook.

When you finally get the Orcas beta image downloaded and running, you'll have to adjust the security settings in IE to be able to run Silverlight applications of either version. I think I clicked "Default level" and it worked OK.

The sessions.mix.com site has some videos of the silverlight sessions up. I'm watching the first of two parts dealing with 1.1 development now.

Sorry to hear of your issues. If you're not able to get things working, try posting or silverlight.net forums or send me a mail - and I'll try to get the right folks internally to help you out

I've been using Flex 2 for a couple of months and I'm very impressed. You don't need the Builder (I have never used it), just an editor and the compilers in the free SDK. I never thought I'd have anything to do with Flash but I'm impressed with the speed and the hook for me was the support for Linux.

As I was teaching my systems integration courses where we used ajax and proxies to integrate RESTful web services, all of these new platforms were coming out, Apollo and at the very end, Silverlight. After what seems like a ton of discussion with students and outside (web) business people as well as looking over all this stuff, it just seems clear to me that these are repackagings of Standards-based solutions with a bit of proprietary pixie dust thrown in.

They may improve things by removing some of the browser limitations, and the proprietary stuff does bring to bear some things that browsers just don't do. But, the download is likely to be a killer for mass adoption. Microsoft would be smart to have Silverlight just become part of IE.

Sriram, I'm going to follow what Scott noted, and we'll see how it goes.

Mike, I noticed about the SDK. Which is good because the Builder is very expensive. Very.

Bud, well, a bit more with the cross-browser embedded CLR. If a person can write their code in C# and have it work across browser, that changes the complexion of building applications, and that's what Silverlight is offering. My biggest concern is this looks Microsoft may be backing off 'standards' based development. One person wrote how there wasn't anything form the IE team at MIX. Ominous.

If a person can write their code in C# and have it work across browser, that changes the complexion of building applications, and that's what Silverlight is offering.

That's a good point. Aspects of our program have been built around the assumption that students will learn C#. The interesting point is that those students found AJAX easier, and I think in part it's because of the viral nature of it. There are just so many APIs and examples out there.

There were a few presentations targeted at IE7 at Mix, the videos will probably be online in the next couple of days.

Mary Jo Foley wrote a piece talking about what one of the IE PMs said about IE 8.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=416

I have no idea what is meant by "opt-in to standards mode"?

Molly H. did a presentation at Mix07 on IE7.

> And that's all that matters.

It seems that we violently disagree. Freedom matters.

Silverlight is the antithesis of a free development platform.

Noah, there is no such thing as 'free' in technology, and the only real freedom we have is the choices we make when it comes to the technology we follow. Even then, the market drives out much of this — if we want to eat.

Shelly, what an absurd statement to make. For starters, I can think of some people who have spent most of their lives disagreeing with you. [1][2]

HTML + EMCA Script + SVG is free technology at every level of the stack.

I completely contend you idea that the "market" drives out freedom. I know some organisations who spend their days disagreeing with you. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

[1] http://www.gnu.org/
[2] http://www.fsf.org/
[3] http://www.redhat.com/
[4] http://www.novell.com/
[5] http://www.w3.org/
[6] http://www.whatwg.org/
[7] http://www.oasis-open.org/

Noah, you're not listening to what I'm saying in this post.

A technology that can be extended or that doesn't cost anything may seem free, but you're spending time learning it, and you may not get anything back for this time. I can spend my time working with open source technologies, while all the jobs in town want Java or VS. So my decision comes with a cost.

You all keep looking at the technology as if how much it costs and whether you can extend the source is all that matters — if it's free, it must be good. Yet, as I wrote, I'd have an easier time finding jobs for Java/Web Sphere and Visual Studio than I ever would open source technologies. At least in the city I live, and I bet the same can be said for others.

I prefer working with open source and have for most of the last five years. But this decision came with a cost - it's harder for me to find contracts.

Everything has a cost. It's important that people be aware of the costs in their decisions of what tech to use. Saying that open source doesn't come with a cost is blowing smoke up the skirts of developers.

Shelly, I understand what you are saying.

It would seem we have different definitions of free, however. You are right that learning free software and technologies can have (subjective) personal costs.

> Saying that open source doesn't come with a cost is blowing smoke up the skirts of developers.

I never said anything about costs. You will not find me in disagreement on this point.

Here we have yet another discussion over the fact that the word "free" is ambiguous in the English language. In Norwegian, we have the word "gratis" (which also exists in English, but is never used) and we have the word "free" (as in freedom). Having those words makes discussing free and open source software so much simpler in Norwegian than in English. :-)

On to the topic of this post, I have to ask what you might be smoking, Shelley. "Fun"? Sounds like torture to me. ;-)