Silverlight is a powerful new technology whose market is yet to be defined.
The development model promoted by Microsoft centers around the use of desktop tools – Visual Studio and Expression Designer. These are good tools and are ideal for teams of professional developers. However, they are far too complex for people who want to quickly create and deploy simple applications – in the same way that MS Word is not the best tool (for most people) for writing email or Usenet posts.
Making Silverlight development simple and accessible will be a major factor in its widespread acceptance. My guess is that most Silverlight applications will be developed online in an environment similar to Wikis or blogs:
- libraries of “pre-built” components
- very simple editing tools
- very simple scripting
- “instant” publication
I will continue to focus on browser-based tools for the creation of games and shared applications using a visual scripting capability similar to MIT’s “Scratch”.
http://community.netikatech.com/demos/silverlight/designer/
Comment by Eric — July 3, 2007 @ 2:05 pm
Eric,
Thanks, I have seen this demo. Impressive.
They have created an online WinForm designer emulating the Win32 controls.
I think that the style of Silverlight applications will be very different from this.
– Peter
Comment by pfisk — July 3, 2007 @ 3:43 pm