Chapter 1. Jumping from ASP.NET to Silverlight 2

Silverlight 2 was released to the world on October 14, 2008. This long-awaited browser plug-in provides a cross-platform environment for developers to leverage their .NET skills to bring Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to desktops worldwide. Silverlight boasts an ultra-fast run time, impressive networking support, high-definition video, and animation. Silverlight 1.0 was released more than a year ago and had many of the features that Silverlight 2 offers, but it lacked real library support to allow code-behind development, required plenty of JavaScript to work with Web Services with minimal networking capability, and did not support the dynamic web languages like IronRuby and IronPython emerging from Microsoft labs.

Silverlight 1.1's roadmap was announced shortly after the official launch of Silverlight 1.0. Developers and companies working with .NET were so excited by the planned features of Silverlight 1.1 (now called Silverlight 2) that many decided to postpone adoption of Silverlight until the new release became available. Now the waiting is over and it's time to ramp up. ASP.NET developers will take the reins of Silverlight 2 and start pushing its capabilities as far as they'll go. As an ASP.NET developer, you're interested in making the jump to Silverlight 2, and you're looking for focused information with context to help get you there.