ASP. NET (silverlight, blend... )!

[Vinnie]

Hi young folk, and i'm learning to work with ASP.net and yesterday I
was talking to a friend in regards a good book to buy for learning
CSS. With surprise he told me that Microsoft has released the Flash
competitor that integrates perfectly with ASP.Net, called
Silverlight.

Surfing for Silverlight on the Microsoft websiate, i found also
Microsoft Blend Express: now, since i'm kind of confused, i was
wondering if someone could give an indication of the difference
between Silverlight and Blend.

Thanks a lot,
Vinnie

 

[Guest]

Hi young folk, and i'm learning to work with ASP.net and yesterday I
was talking to a friend in regards a good book to buy for learning
CSS. With surprise he told me that Microsoft has released the Flash
competitor that integrates perfectly with ASP.Net, called
Silverlight.

Surfing for Silverlight on the Microsoft websiate, i found also
Microsoft Blend Express: now, since i'm kind of confused, i was
wondering if someone could give an indication of the difference
between Silverlight and Blend.

Thanks a lot,
Vinnie

The difference is the same as the one between Adobe Photoshop and
Adobe Flash. Microsoft® Expression Blend™ is the professional design
tool used to create engaging Web-connected experiences for Windows.
Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering
the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive
applications.

 

[Just Me]

Take a look at this, download the demo and watch it, its quite illuminating.

http://silverlight.net/getstarted/

I had no Idea these two products were around, they are going to take the
market by storm in my opinion.

Hi young folk, and i'm learning to work with ASP.net and yesterday I
was talking to a friend in regards a good book to buy for learning
CSS. With surprise he told me that Microsoft has released the Flash
competitor that integrates perfectly with ASP.Net, called
Silverlight.

Surfing for Silverlight on the Microsoft websiate, i found also
Microsoft Blend Express: now, since i'm kind of confused, i was
wondering if someone could give an indication of the difference
between Silverlight and Blend.

Thanks a lot,
Vinnie

The difference is the same as the one between Adobe Photoshop and
Adobe Flash. Microsoft® Expression BlendT is the professional design
tool used to create engaging Web-connected experiences for Windows.
Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering
the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive
applications.

 

[Smithers]

RE:
<< .. used to create engaging Web-connected experiences >>

and

<< next generation of media experiences and rich interactive >>

Am I supposed to go "ohhhh I get it!" I had no idea before, now it's all
perfectly clear"

What is any of that supposed to mean? "engaging experiences" "next
generation"... "rich interactive"

All of those completely vague descriptors can be used in reference to plain
old HTML pages styled with plain old css. A humble hyperlink can be
described as "interactive" - hook it up to a sexy .gif and the plain old
hyperlink can now be described as "rich interactive" or "engaging". Maybe
not "next generation" - but then "next generation" does absolutely nothing
to inform us what the technology actually IS or DOES.

Sorry about the rant - you sound like all of those totally unhelpful
"Spotlight on Silverlight" MSDN flash promos floating around. I've read them
and still have no idea what they are talking about. I was hoping you'd be
able to shed some light. But "engaging" ??? "rich interactive??? I still
have no idea what these things are.

Sheesh.

-S

Hi young folk, and i'm learning to work with ASP.net and yesterday I
was talking to a friend in regards a good book to buy for learning
CSS. With surprise he told me that Microsoft has released the Flash
competitor that integrates perfectly with ASP.Net, called
Silverlight.

Surfing for Silverlight on the Microsoft websiate, i found also
Microsoft Blend Express: now, since i'm kind of confused, i was
wondering if someone could give an indication of the difference
between Silverlight and Blend.

Thanks a lot,
Vinnie

The difference is the same as the one between Adobe Photoshop and
Adobe Flash. Microsoft® Expression BlendT is the professional design
tool used to create engaging Web-connected experiences for Windows.
Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering
the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive
applications.

 

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Take a look at this, download the demo and watch it, its quite
illuminating.

http://silverlight.net/getstarted/

It's a little difficult to get beyond counting the number of times the
presenter says "go ahead and"...

Incredibly irritating...

 

[Guest]

RE:
<< .. used to create engaging Web-connected experiences >>

and

<< next generation of media experiences and rich interactive >>

Am I supposed to go "ohhhh I get it!" I had no idea before, now it's all
perfectly clear"

What is any of that supposed to mean? "engaging experiences" "next
generation"... "rich interactive"

All of those completely vague descriptors can be used in reference to plain
old HTML pages styled with plain old css. A humble hyperlink can be
described as "interactive" - hook it up to a sexy .gif and the plain old
hyperlink can now be described as "rich interactive" or "engaging". Maybe
not "next generation" - but then "next generation" does absolutely nothing
to inform us what the technology actually IS or DOES.

Sorry about the rant - you sound like all of those totally unhelpful
"Spotlight on Silverlight" MSDN flash promos floating around. I've read them
and still have no idea what they are talking about. I was hoping you'd be
able to shed some light. But "engaging" ??? "rich interactive??? I still
have no idea what these things are.

Sheesh.

-S






The difference is the same as the one between Adobe Photoshop and
Adobe Flash. Microsoft® Expression BlendT is the professional design
tool used to create engaging Web-connected experiences for Windows.
Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering
the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive
applications.

It's all about marketing. Will it be more clear for you if they wrote
"Expression Blend is the
tool to create Silverlight. And Silverlight is a browser plug-in to
deliver a multimedia content"?

 

[Just Me]

Lol, well thats our American cousins for you.

It's a little difficult to get beyond counting the number of times the
presenter says "go ahead and"...

Incredibly irritating...

 

[Just Me]

Ha Ha Ha

Rant, Love it !

Instead of ranting. Why dont you take a little time to watch the demo and
read up on it a bit more. I think that this has potential to address a
number of issues for developers/teams. But hey, I dont work for ms, so i
dont really give a rats if you like it or hate it, makes absolutely no
difference to me.

;-D

 

[Smithers]

It's all about marketing.

Yes - but as a genius marketing company (no sarcasm there - I really think
that), I would expect Microsoft to consider *who* they are marketing TO.
Consider the audience. When marketing to a non technical person, those fluff
words might be effective. But marketing to a programmer, those fluff
expressions are meaningless (at best).

I would especially expect anybody posting in this particular NG to
communicate in more technical terms. See my comments below:

Will it be more clear for you if they wrote
"Expression Blend is the
tool to create Silverlight. And Silverlight is a browser plug-in to
deliver a multimedia content"?

YES! That's far more helpful.

"X is a browser plug-in" tells us technical types more about what is going
on - what this new technology IS - and not simply that it's "next
generation" which tells us nothing about what, how, why or any other such
aspect.

With those 19 words above ("Expression Blend is the tool to...", I know *far
more* about what silverlight is, and its relationship to Expression Blend.

In the C# NG a couple of days some guy was claiming that Silverlight
*replaces* CSS. Was he an idiot or was he just confused and reading into the
marketing gloss of "rich interactive, next generation" blah blah blah
surrounding Silverlight?

-S

 

[Smithers]

RE:
<< Why dont you take a little time to watch the demo and read up on it a bit
more>>

I have and I will!

But I think it's also useful to point out how we can communicate more
effectively - what works and, in this case, what doesn't work. Hopefully it
will help to raise the collective intelligence - whatever that is

This particular topic is in need of much more clarity than the developer
community is getting. While many developers have heard of XAML, SilverLight,
and Expression Blend etc, many really don't know what they are, how they
might relate to each other, and reasons to adopt. And these things have been
out (or at least talked about) for a long time now (at least XAML has been
around for a couple of years).

Part of the problem is the "next generation" "rich interative"
"web-connected" fluff that we get. You've gotta be kidding! ---
"Web-connected" good grief. My a$$ is "web connected" (but that's a
different story!).

Q: "Who is Jon Smith?" (What is Silverlight?)
A: "He is an "engaging" young man." ("It's next generation, man!")
Q: "Do you know anything useful about Jon Smith (Silverlight) at this
point???
A: No.

-S

 

[Just Me]

I think you need to work out on a punch bag for a couple of hours, then go
out and nip off a few beers dude. You sound way to wound up !

 

[Guest]

Yes - but as a genius marketing company (no sarcasm there - I really think
that), I would expect Microsoft to consider *who* they are marketing TO.
Consider the audience. When marketing to a non technical person, those fluff
words might be effective. But marketing to a programmer, those fluff
expressions are meaningless (at best).

It's not for programmers:

- What is Microsoft Expression?
- Microsoft Expression is a suite of tools for professional designers
building web and Windows client applications and rich media content.
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/faq.aspx?key=studio

 

[Smithers]

It's not for programmers:

- What is Microsoft Expression?
- Microsoft Expression is a suite of tools for professional designers
building web and Windows client applications and rich media content.
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/faq.aspx?key=studio

Thanks for the link.

It's chock full of the fluff I was ranting about, but weeding through that
gets to some helpful info.

-S

 

[Cowboy \(Gregory A. Beamer\)]

Silverlight is the piece that runs to put interactive content in a browser.
Blend is a tool for building Silverlight applications. This really comes to
fruition when the final 1.1 bits are released later this year or early next
year.

Adobe's competing technology is called the Flex Framework. It still uses
Flash as its cornerstone.