Silverlight - Anyone working with or learning

yop

Folks,
Downloaded it the last night and started looking at a few lessons.

I wonder if there is any point in learning it yet? WOuld I be as well to advance my ASP.NET as its been a while since I did much ASP.NET work.

Silverlight seems to create some tasty sites developed but why would it be better than ASP.NET?


Cheers

PixelTrawler

Yes I'm currently working with silverlight 2.

Its not a case that one is better then the other, they are designed for different things.

However your c# skills will translate across as its coded in c# (or vb.net - whichever you use)

One thing to learn is web.services as these are essential to know for any kind of data binding in silverlight 2, but also are a skill to be used in ajax asp.net sites also so there are elements that'll be useful in both.

Likewise linq to xml is very useful in silverlight as you tend to consume xml files frequently, again this can also be done in asp.net so they are not completely different technologies.

Silverlight is microsofts attempt to enter the RIA arena, theres a lot of stuff coming next year such as Silverlight 3 and also silverlight and wpf coming closer together and eventually silverlight will come to the desktop (similar fashion to flex / air)

I wouldn't build an entire website in silverlight 2, just as you wouldn't in flash (although some have done it but its more they have done just because its silverlight rather then it actually being a practical thing to do)

So yes learn it, but not exclusively,

(one other thing, I've found, if you have it, is to work with a dual monitor setup - have blend in one and vs 2008 in the other - the way the two work together is a bit of a pain but its improving in 2010 but thats a while away yet)

galwayguy22

Flash ftw lolz

PixelTrawler

Good contribution there

yop

Cheers Solyad appreciate that detail. I think for what I need to develop, I will stick with ASP.Net.

Thanks

the Guru

The company I work for has been using Silverlight or "Elite Artist In Residence Program" as it was called when we started using it. Even though we were one the the first development companies to get hands on experience using silverlight -- we still do not use it that much/at all for client projects other than the Microsoft projects we build.

I would be really interested on how the the Irish developer community has adapted Silverlight, and what applications developers are using silverlight for!

nikimere

I'd be interested to know what it's advantages are over Flash?

p

nikimere wrote: »

I'd be interested to know what it's advantages are over Flash?

It's more powerful in many ways, but seems like it had it's real benefits in larger teams. It's quite hard to someone to start dabbling in it unless you've a bit of development experience already.

Flash certainly has the edge for designers or animators to dip into it, and Flex is pretty good for developers who want to use flash too.


I think it's real promise is actually just their tool Blend, for creating desktop apps that create new kinds of interactions, and being able to bring in a UI designer that can work in their own tool but part of a larger UI team.

John_Mc

Was at a microsoft talk about Silverlight the other day and it was pretty impressive. I particularly like the Deep Zoom feature provided out of the box, and can be seen on the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia page.

I dont have any uses for it at present but will certainly keep it in mind for future projects I take on.

As already pointed out, it's uses are distinct from ASP.net so better off learning both and not one or the other.