WynApse

Trouble Learning Silverlight? -- maybe your scope is too large

It seems every day on the Silverlight.net forum somebody is having trouble getting "Hello World" to run in Silverlight. On the surface, that wouldn't seem unusual, because it's something new. But then I look at the post and have to ask myself what is really going on.

Why is it that everyone feels they must without a doubt have to learn Silverlight from the standpoint of the Alpha? It must be the masochistic side of software developers or something. We know there's pain involved in learning, so why don't we make that pain just as bad as we can possibly imagine?

Compare with me what is necessary to get going in the two versions of Silverlight currently available:

Silverlight 1.0

• Download the 1.0 SDK, pull out the Silverlight.js file and place it somewhere handy
• Open the Online SDK in a browser window in case you need it
• Find one of many 1.0 tutorials, and within 5 minutes have "Hello Silverlight" running in a browser
• Start-to-finish, if this takes more than 20 minutes, it's because you had an old version of SL on your machine and the refresh is kicking you around the desk.

Silverlight 1.1 (and some of this really is unnecessary, but not the way many people are approaching it):

• Download and install VS2008 Beta 2, however long that may take you (this may not be the proper order, I haven't done it)
• Download and install the 1.1 SDK, including the Visual Studio project pieces
• Download and install Expression Blend 2, the 2nd August preview
• Find a tutorial or spend a bunch of time building a project in VS, then opening it in Blend
• Add one line of xaml and press F5, or save the project and go back to VS and press F5
• Start-to-finish unknown... you're interfacing Silverlight/Blend 2/and VS2008  two of which are Beta and one Alpha.

Note that for the average 1.1 learner posting I've seen, or worse yet "Introductory" Tutorials out there, I've left out steps such as connecting up to a web service in their .NET language of choice, or including ASP.NET Ajax in their project, or LINQ.

So what is the desired result?

Driving down this path, are we trying to learn Blend 2, or VS2008? Maybe, but you can do both outside the pretense of learning Silverlight.

We've all connected to Web Services using our Language-o-choice, and anyone that's wanted to has had ASP.NET Ajax around long enough to play with it.

Is any of that really necessary to be included while trying to write "Hello World" onto a web page using Silverlight??

I say no, and here's my reasoning:

There's nothing you learn in 1.0 that's not directly transferable to 1.1

xaml is xaml, and what Blend 2 creates, personally I'd think you want to be able to read -- let's see a show of hands for anyone that is writing web applications using .NET 2.0 that knows nothing of html... that's a ridiculous thought, yet for some reason I think people are jumping on the 1.1 bandwagon because they think they don't have to learn xaml. Well, ok, but keep my cell number on speed dial for consulting when you get wrapped around the axle :)

My thought is spend the 5 or 10 minutes getting "Hello Silverlight" up on your browser using 1.0 ... bask in the warm glow of having done so... go grab a Coke and some M&Ms and dream what you want to do next.

A hint for you... the Silverlight.js file that you downloaded with the 1.0 SDK? ... that's the same one you need for 1.1 And the xaml you just produced that's giving off the warm glow? That'll work in 1.1 as well!

Do I think everyone should stay in 1.0? Absolutely not... and at some point, I'm going to be blogging my adventure through the maze of getting 1.1 applications up and running, but for now, even with 34 canvases on 36 pages of Silverlight 1.0 on my site, I think there's a lot of 1.0 and xaml goodness still to be absorbed, so I'm not ready yet.

Time is the only commodity we have to deal in, and as my wife keeps telling me "Nobody is going to add more hours to the day just for you, buster". Personally, I'd rather spend the time I have available being productive learning Silverlight via 1.0 than pooting around trying to get all those other toys playing well with each other just so I can display "Hello World".

As always, this is just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions :)

If you want to test my 5 or 10-minute to "Hello World" concept, take a look at my tutorial links below. The first one doesn't explain a thing. All you do is copy/paste and run.

There are other tutorials as well, some of which are on the Silverlight.net site and some are linked on SilverlightCream.com using the tag "Tutorial".

It's supposed to be fun so when it stops being fun, change what you're doing :)

posted @ Friday, August 24, 2007 2:11 PM