BAADD .net - Introduction to Silverlight April 30, 2008

At our April meeting, Cal Schrotenboer will present an Introduction to Silverlight - it's goals versus its current state.

Rocky Lhodka says of Silverlight: "The Web isn't dead, but it is about to undergo the biggest transformation in the past decade. Given a choice between writing complex JavaScript that must accommodate differences in browsers to interact with an antiquated browser API, or writing C# or VB .NET code that is consistent regardless of browser or platform, and which uses a modern API, I think most developers would choose the latter, hands down. And that's Silverlight..."

Alan Nathan says of Silverlight:: "A promising alternative to Flash, Silverlight enables the creation of rich web content and applications using a lightweight add-on that is friendly to both designers and developers".

Laurence Moroney says of Silverlight: "With Silverlight (and AJAX), the goal is to create Web applications that are much more like desktop applications, and ultimately, to create applications that are indistinguishable from desktop applications."

This presentation will evaluate how realistic these goals are and how far along Microsoft has progressed in achieving them.

Speaker: Cal is a C# developer with experience in building Windows Forms application front ends for SQL Server databases. He also teaches programming classes (Advanced C#, WPF, Expression Blend, WCF, ASP.NET, VSTO, Powershell, SQL Server 2005) at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California and Microsoft Network Administration (MCSE) classes at Mission College in Santa Clara.

Recently Cal has begun specializing in WPF. He has done five MSDN Webcasts on various WPF topics and has spoken to User Groups and Code Camps throughout California about WPF. His Foothill College WPF and Expression Blend classes were likely the first college level classes in these topics available anywhere. Cal maintains a WPF blog at www.WPFLearningExperience.com. His outside interests include travel and photography (www.travelswithcal.com). Cal has a sample XBAP application available at www.travelswithcal.com/wpfzone and sample Silverlight applications at www.schrotenboer.com/cal/resume and www.drinkmate.com/standardimprints/

Official Website: http://www.baadd.org/dotnetnuke2/NET/tabid/56/Default.aspx