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• Silverlight 2 – The release candidate and next steps

  On Thursday night we published the first public release candidate for Silverlight 2, described in some detail by Scott Guthrie .  This is a developer-only release and you can learn all about what it is and how to get it in a terrific blog post by Tim. Starting immediately,  I'll be re-focusing this blog on clarifying what has changed, how it affects your programming and what you need to know to get ready for release. As of today, I am making a commitment to you to have a meaningful blog entry published every day by 1pm Eastern (GMT –5).  By every day I mean… every day. It is my goal for this blog to become the go-to resource on a day to day basis and for there to be a substantive Silverlight article here every day . 1pm.  Look for less clutter, more signal, less noise. To kick things off, today I'll be blogging on a change in how you create the default appearance of custom controls (in generic.xaml) in the release candidate.  Look for it by 1pm. Posted Sep 27 2008, 06:51 AM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: Recommended Resources, Community, Opinion, Planning, Release Candidate

• What topics are important to you? Survey Results

  The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter. - Blaise Pascal Again, thank you for taking the time to respond to the survey , it was extremely helpful to me in planning the videos, tutorials and blog posts I'll be creating in coming months. The survey is still open, but this constitutes my report. Unless there are any surprises, I'll read what comes in and incorporate it into my plans. Communication The most significant aspect of the survey is that you took the time to let me know what you need, and I'm happy to say that what you need fits in well with what we're geared up to provide. Overall, most of you are quite happy with the material here and find this a useful resource, but I'm convinced we can and must do a lot better. What won't help is to keep saying that, so with this final report on the survey , it is my intention to stop blogging about  plans and start churning out new resources.   A Rare Medium Well Done I asked about your preference for tutorials, walk through, video, etc.  You were of a single mind. Examining your first and second choices, we see that: 85 % value in-depth tutorials 67 % value videos 44 % value short walk-throughs 10 % value web casts. As a result, expect to see more tutorials and videos, but also expect to see an attempt at making webcasts a more useful medium. They clearly are not successful as live versions of "how do I videos," and frankly I don't find them a good substitute for live conference presentations, but I've not given up. Live is live, and I'm convinced I can find a way, despite whatever barriers there are, to leverage that immediacy. Please Sir, I Want Some More… As for the level (novice to advanced), there was a very strong consensus (over 80%) that all the material should be at the intermediate to advanced level – but of course the folks who were most likely to respond were the most involved and most experienced users of the site.  What comes through equally clearly, however is that you see the tutorials as the place for the most advanced material.  Real Code for Real Programmers While there was no single topic that stood out as the most desirable, there was an overwhelming consensus that it was time to move beyond the introductory material and into the more advanced real-world, business oriented application-building areas. Making sense of this kind of survey is 10% statistical analysis, 90% how... Posted Sep 19 2008, 11:41 AM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: Recommended Resources, Community, Opinion, Planning, Observations, Survey

• Survey – Results compiled tonight

  Thank you for an unprecedented response to this week's survey on what topics are most important to you . I will keep the survey open, but I will attempt to compile and report on the results by tomorrow morning. Your feedback is incredibly valuable. Statistics as of this morning include over 250 responses. Full report in the morning, but here are some very preliminary impressions: The results have held steady from the very beginning – Webcasts have overwhelmingly been the "last choice" for over 2/3 of users and in-depth tutorials have been the first choice; with short videos and short tutorials splitting the middle position.  In any case, there is almost total unanimity that all presentations should be at the Intermediate (300) level except for tutorials,  which nearly 2/3 of you think should be more advanced.   I'll break the above out in more detail in the morning, and I'll certainly give more detail on the topics, but the top level there is that there are only a few topics that nearly everyone thinks is unimportant! Preliminary Indicators In any case, there is  tremendous agreement about the important topics. Big winners include custom controls, anything touching on data, advanced features, web services, deployment, dynamic loading… well, like I said, I'll have a full report tomorrow. Perhaps the most surprising finding to me (so far) is that fully 1/3 of the respondents find interacting with ASP.NET unimportant. I'll be probing that more. The Free Form Comments The true treasure is in the free-form comments that fell under "what didn't we ask and what would you have told us" – Here I have 91 thoughtful views to read through and summarize. Terrific stuff. First Cut-off: 17:00 (GMT –5) Sept 18 If you can get your response in by tonight, that will certainly have the greatest impact, but as I say, I will keep the survey open and I'll consult the results over coming weeks. Quick Responses To A Couple Comments VB? VB! One comment was "VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB Do examples in Visual Basic!!!! VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB -- VB – VB"  -- You'll be happy to know that (virtually) all the videos will be done in VB with code available in both VB and C# and that the tutorials are (slowly) being redone so that we can offer both a C# and a VB version of each. "You should be telling us not us telling you" Very quick note to the person who advised... Posted Sep 18 2008, 09:58 AM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: Community, Opinion, Planning, Observations, Survey

• On Meeting the Needs of Every User

  I received a public flame recently that I've become complacent in this job and am not doing the hard work of meeting the needs of those who want to go beyond the basics.  While it is tempting to talk about 16 hour days, missed weekends with my family, 50 videos, 300 blog posts and yadda yadda,  no one rightly cares about all that. What is cared about is " How much is Microsoft committed to helping me meeting my needs to get my   work done ?" Fair enough.  You don't take this job without understanding that there will come a time in the life-cycle when you're going to have to simultaneously meet the needs of people who are just getting started, folks who are intermediate in their understanding and those who need advanced material. My personal assessment is that we're getting better at meeting the needs of the first two groups, but we don't yet have a lot of material for the last group, though as we've said, we're working on that.  The fact that we don't isn't really all that surprising – the product is relatively new, so are we, and everything is a moving target. But so what? If it were easy no one would need us . Thus, I don't have much to offer you yet, except an open acknowledgement that you've been heard, that what you say has merit, and that we're working on it. There is an old story: a man meets a woman in a bar. They start to dance. He says "I'm only here for the weekend." She says "I'm dancing as fast as I can." Stay tuned.   -jesse Posted Sep 16 2008, 07:34 AM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: Community, Opinion, Planning

• I’m Back!

  In the words of the immortal Roseanne Roseannadana “It’s always something….” Just when i was finally back from vacations and other distractions and ready to handle my very intense deadlines… I was struck down by… well you really don’t want to know except that it was food-borne, it landed me in a lovely hospital outside Redmond (where i came for what seemed at the time to be an important 3 day meeting of which I attended 10 minutes) and someone owes me two entire days that I don’t remember at all. As these things do, the experience gave me time to reflect on what is important in life. You know, kids, Silverlight, family, blogging, videos, wifi, private rooms in hospitals, good health care, the Daily Show…. And it gave me time to plan and prioritize to meet the needs of folks who have responded to the tutorials, blog entries, videos and more. I’ve written more than enough already about “here’s what’s coming…” so I won’t again. Instead I’ll spend the next couple months kicking those plans into gear. By the end of October I’ll try to get a sense of how things are going, and adjust the balance and in January it will be time to assess. That said, look for the first step: regular blogging, to start right now : I was listening to Scott Hanselman sing the praises of those who have something useful in their blogs daily; that is a high standard, but worth shooting for. Up next: the difference between understanding a concept and implementing it. Creating Templatable Custom Controls using the States and Parts Model, Part 1. Posted Sep 07 2008, 03:59 PM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: Opinion, Planning, Observations

• When Will Silverlight Ship?

  I have received a number of emails asking when Silverlight will ship; and I’ve promised to look into it for a number of folks who very much need to know. Here is what I found out… While the incredible success of the use of Silverlight in facilitating the viewing of the Olympics and the Democratic convention speak to the solidity of Silverlight 2 and to the very high standards we’ve set, we’re not quite ready to make any announcements. (sorry). Please be assured that we totally understand how much you need to know the date, but as has been true all along, when we announce a date we want it to be a date you can count on, and we are working hard on getting you that date as soon as we possibly can. Where Has Liberty Gone? While I have you, let me apologize for the recent slow down in information coming from Liberty Central. I was on vacation for much of August (and, as many of you know, dealing with family “stuff”) and I’ll be “out of office” for much of September: I’m in Redmond this week, and will be in the UK from the 14th to the 25th (Remix, Bristol, Dublin and Ulster). Once I return, I hope to ramp up a significant set of more advanced videos, supplemented by tutorials, web-casts, and blog posts, and then venture into a couple new approaches. The goal will be to meet the needs of those of you who want to go beyond the fundamentals, while still ensuring that the “on ramps” to Silverlight are kept in good condition as programmers arrive. I have a long list of advanced topics from your suggestions and from talking with folks here, and Tim and I are looking at a lot of cool ways to get that information out. In the meantime, please be sure to catch my next webcast on September 10: Creating Skinnable Custom Controls. Posted Sep 03 2008, 05:50 AM by Jesse Liberty - Silverlight Geek Filed under: Community, Opinion, Planning