Microsoft Silverlight
May 22, 2007
This is old news but Microsoft announced a new technology that they are calling Microsoft Silverlight on April 30th 2007.
On the surface, v1.0 might be seen as an Adobe Flash competitor – which I think it pretty much is.
Where it gets interesting for me is in v1.1 which is currently available in Alpha and targeted to be available by the end of this year.
This is the version that gives you the ability to write cross-platform browser apps in languages like C# without having to resort to Javascript (unless you enjoy that sort of thing). It runs on top of a trimmed down version of the .NET Framework – not the compact framework – but a version of the framework with only things that relate to writing web apps. It also has something called the DLR which is essentially an extension to the CLR that makes it easier to port dynamic languages (like Ruby and Python) to the .NET framework.
This is a huge deal for developers who currently target the .NET framework and are tired of writing browser apps that use HTML for the GUI and Javascript for client-side interactivity – I know I am ready for something better.
I look forward to the day where you can write a desktop quality app and have it run in a browser.
- M
