Scott demonstrating ASP.net MVC

Well Remix is over and my thoughts post event was that it was a bit of let down. Unfortunately PDC is right around the corner and as a result no new major announcements were being made. Before attending I made a promise to myself to mix equally between design and development orientated sessions.

While there I got to speak to some great people and discuss topics ranging from visualisation techniques to the duplex communication in Silverlight. I was also lucky enough to grab a few moments of Scott Gu’s time and discuss a few Silverlight specifics. 

• No MergeDictionaries for RTM - I was mortified to hear that MergeDictionaries is not going to make it into the RTM. I cannot believe that we have to specify all our styles and resources in our App.xaml for the foreseeable future.  This is particularly annoying if you are trying to migrate a WPF app to Silverlight.

• H264 will miss RTM – I kind of expected this one as it was only recently announced. But Scott clarified it.

• Charting controls coming – It looks like the Silverlight team are working hard on more advanced controls and Scott let slip that charting controls are to be included.

• Silverlight automatic update – In one of Scott’s sessions he confirmed that Silver light 2 Beta 2 installs will automatically upgrade to the RTM.

• Ribbon bar for WPF on track – It looks like the Ribbon for WPF should be due sometime this year. I asked if we can expect to see this in Silverlight soon and he confirmed it was NOT on the current development schedule. (Damn).

• Silverlight not the preferred platform – I asked Scott if I could expect to see innovation happening in the Silverlight space from now on given that the VSM was developed for Silverlight first. Scott said there was no particular decision on which came first, however they will be trying and reduce the issue of code portability between WPF and Silverlight apps.

• And Finally - 3D was pretty much confirmed. When asked by a member of the audience when will we see 3D support in Silverlight Scott’s grin couldn’t be hidden. He kept saying “Well that would be a compelling option”. I’m expecting to see this announced at PDC.

So generally I had a good couple of days but felt some of the session’s could have been a little more tech and less big picture. Next year perhaps.