LAURENCE MORONEY IS THE AUTHOR of several books on .NET and Web services, as well as several dozen articles that span the technology realm. He believes strongly that good interoperability is the key to open standards and open source working efficiently and effectively, and that this interop should begin at the human level. This makes him a keen enthusiast of the Visual MainWin for J2EE product, because it allows developers to work together more effectively to deliver systems that operate on diverse platforms.
We asked Laurence Moroney to tell us a bit about Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology:
Q. Laurence, what exactly is Silverlight, and what can we do with it?
A. Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. It is designed to bring the work of designers and developers closer together to allow for well-designed applications to be built easily and cost effectively. It achieves this through use of XML Application Markup Language (XAML), an XML-based language that is expressed by design tools such as Microsoft Expression Blend and Microsoft Expression Design. Using these, the designer’s vision and work is implemented directly into the application, and activated by the programmer in code.
Version 1.0 of Silverlight (now released) is a plug-in for the browser that renders XAML and exposes a JavaScript programming interface.
Version 1.1. of Silverlight (in early access) adds .NET programming to this. It will ship with a special mini-CLR that allows developers to write code in their favorite .NET language and have it execute on the browser. And yes, it will work on the Mac!
Q. What is your involvement with Silverlight? Aren’t you on the development team?
A. I’m a Technology Evangelist at Microsoft, part of the Developer Platform Evangelism organization. We’re generally seen as an ‘extended’ part of the product development team. We work at the intersection of development, marketing and business development. I’m primarily responsible for Silverlight.
Q. Tell us about your new book on Silverlight, Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 1.0.
A. My new book on Silverlight 1.0 is designed to be an easy-to-read quick start in understanding what Silverlight 1.0 is all about and how to start building applications quickly. There are chapters on the architecture of Silverlight, the tools, XAML, JavaScript programming, Media programming, Ink-based computing, Transformations, Animation, how to integrate Silverlight in an n-Tier architecture, and the future of Silverlight.
Q. Is there somewhere that we can see some examples of Silverlight?
A. Yes, Check out http://www.silverlight.net — there are lots and lots of examples there.
OK, thank you, Laurence!
And there you have it!
You can check out more about Silverlight on Laurence’s blog
