Sliverlight Training @ Microsoft – why would I want to do that?
Published on April 17th, 2007 by DannyT. Filed under .Net, Business, Development Tools, Expression, Flash, FlexThis week I am on a training course titled “Creating engaging user experiences with Microsoft Expression” “Delivering Rich Online Experiences Using Miscrosoft Expression, ASP.Net, AJAX and WPF” (edit: surprisingly I couldn’t remeber the exact title without the material in front of me, this is now the real course title and a better indication of the content).
Why?
Well, I met Andrew Shorten, a former Macromedia/Adobe now Microsoft UX guy after my presentation on Apollo at the LFPUG in February. We got to talking about what he’s up to at MS and a few days later he came down to see us in sunny Bournemouth and we got into discussing the latest industry goings ons and where the Microsoft Expression suite, WPF and SilverLight (then WPF/e) fits in. Turns out he’s a pretty cool guy and has a pretty cool job of liaising with the developer community and trying to push and gather feedback on the whole Expression outfit. He offered me a place on this early adopters course and me, being one for expanding my (and my businesses) horizons rather than spouting off uneducated, ill-researched rants about my love/hatred/bandwagoning-opinion on various technology companies, accepted.
Yeaaaah, but WHY?
Well, I’m well aware MS has been getting a bit of a bashing from the Adobe crowd (dev community and the more corporately associated) of late. I’m also obviously not anti-Adobe myself. Far from it, I’ve been developing with Flash since early Flash 4, I’ve blogged enthusiastically about Apollo, Flash and Flex for nearly a year (late starter in comparison to some but have been reading and commenting on blogs for years). I’ve attended several Flash conferences and regularly travelled the 3+ hours to London for the monthly MMUG and now LFPUG meets. However, I have also been a long-time user of Microsoft technologies, I’ve developed in .net for several years, both ASP.Net and Windows Apps development, before that I developed in VB and classic ASP, am fluent in SQL Server and have managed several dedicated MS web servers over the past few years.
So… I’m an Adobe AND MS fanboy? Kind of, but I also run my own Linux server (on which this site is hosted), am in no way adverse to owning a Mac, am increasingly familiar with Apache, PHP and MySQL, am interested in several Open Source projects and generally like to keep tuned to as much as possible in the web and technology space.
So… (finally getting to the point) for me, taking an active interest in Expression and Silverlight was never a choice of ditching Adobe in favour of the MS alternative. I have no intention of stopping or slowing down any of my interest in Adobe, nor any other technology. I’m just prepared to arm myself with the relevant skills to understand the Expression toolset, familiarise myself with the merits and drawbacks of the available technologies and position myself in the best place possible to be able to accept projects requiring MS, Adobe or whatever technologies and being able to advise in an authoritative capacity which is the right technology to use for which specific projects.
I’ve been getting a bit hacked off with the side-swiping and name-calling going on in our industry of late. And think it’s time for these companies to stop wasting time trying to make each other look bad and start concentrating on their products and their developers. We’re now spoiled for choice with some amazing technologies, let us get our teeth into them without feeling guilty and let us do some amazing stuff with those technologies. You won’t influence by bad-mouthing, you’ll influence by supporting, listening and reacting to your developer communities.
Sorry, now the rant is over, I’ll get back to posting on the week’s progress as I delve into the unknown world of Expression. 
Tink
April 17th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I totally agree!
If your an evalgelist, concentrate on evangalising about your products instead of putting down the competitors. Then us devs can make a knowledgable choice.
Scott Barnes
April 17th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Great post
If you could post more on your experiences going forward, as it would be interesting to see how you use the new mediums and in what way. I’ve been watching the past 5 days how Flash/Flex Developers use both SilverLight and WPF via Expression Tools and it’s truly amazing to see how fast they not only pick it up but what they do with it. (I call it study @ the developer enclosure).
It’s also great to see you’ve got an open mind and being agnostic! (You’ll be stronger for it trust me heh).
Keep moving forward.
-
Scott Barnes
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft.
DannyT
April 18th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Edit: This comment actually got picked up by akismet which I hadn’t realised and so wasn’t visible before Tink posted his comment below, caught by my own spam filter eh? WTF
Tink: exactly what I’ve said in response to certain Flash Vs Silverlight posts by certain prominent Adobe staff
Scott: Thanks for the response, I’ll certainly be posting more of my experiences and I’ll be very interested in your thoughts on that.
. It just makes me cringe a little every time I read both sides propeganda and reactions on EVERY MS vs Adobe post.
Thanks also for the note on being open minded and agnostic, but do also note that I see yourself as somewhat ‘in the playground’ with the references to side-swiping. Although granted you do stay somewhat more diplomatic than others, I just get the impression you know which buttons to press to invoke a reaction and enjoy doing so
Tink
April 19th, 2007 at 3:29 am
“I’ve been getting a bit hacked off with the side-swiping and name-calling going on in our industry of late. And think it’s time for these companies to stop wasting time trying to make each other look bad and start concentrating on their products and their developers. We’re now spoiled for choice with some amazing technologies, let us get our teeth into them without feeling guilty and let us do some amazing stuff with those technologies. You won’t influence by bad-mouthing, you’ll influence by supporting, listening and reacting to your developer communities.”
I think you had a major influence on that paragraph Scott!
brudinie
May 14th, 2007 at 10:02 am
I’ve had a quick look at Expression Suite and its great to see Microsoft create a web development suite that encourages standards compliance (xhtml, css, etc). The video on Microsoft’s website certainly sells the product for its power in creating cross browser standards compliant code. (Things are sounding good up to this point, eh?)
If Microsoft are so committed to web standards, why would they develop Silverlight? Not only will they fail to provide a Linux plugin, the Silverlight vector graphics use a proprietary XAML format instead of the web-standard SVG which everyone has been crying out for in IE7.
If you are a web developer with a conscience for true cross-platform, standards compliant web technologies, I urge you – please do not develop for Silverlight.
At least Adobe provide a Linux plugin for their proprietary FLASH technology.
Microsoft’s monopoly is bad enough as it is. Every person that develops using their technology (or even worse, works for them) needs to wake up to the moral and ethical questions posed by their monopoly.
It would have been nice if Silverlight was not just another Microsoft attempt at creating a Linux killer.
brudinie
May 14th, 2007 at 10:03 am
This is my second attempt at posting a comment – do they require approval first because if they do, the ‘Leave a comment’ box needs to make that clear.
I’ve had a quick look at Expression Suite and its great to see Microsoft create a web development suite that encourages standards compliance (xhtml, css, etc). The video on Microsoft’s website certainly sells the product for its power in creating cross browser standards compliant code. (Things are sounding good up to this point, eh?)
If Microsoft are so committed to web standards, why would they develop Silverlight? Not only will they fail to provide a Linux plugin, the Silverlight vector graphics use a proprietary XAML format instead of the web-standard SVG which everyone has been crying out for in IE7.
If you are a web developer with a conscience for true cross-platform, standards compliant web technologies, I urge you – please do not develop for Silverlight.
At least Adobe provide a Linux plugin for their proprietary FLASH technology.
Microsoft’s monopoly is bad enough as it is. Every person that develops using their technology (or even worse, works for them) needs to wake up to the moral and ethical questions posed by their monopoly.
It would have been nice if Silverlight was not just another Microsoft attempt at creating a Linux killer.
DannyT
May 14th, 2007 at 10:09 am
No approval needed, often posts get caught by the spam blocker but in this case it appears to be working fine. Possibly a caching issue? I’ll keep an eye on it, thanks for highlighting it Brudinie and thanks for your thoughts.
telewizja n
November 10th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
If Microsoft are so committed to web standards, why would they develop Silverlight? Not only will they fail to provide a Linux plugin, the Silverlight vector graphics use a proprietary XAML format instead of the web-standard SVG which everyone has been crying out for in IE7.