The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Silverlight

Feedback Req: Do you need to know the list of released runtime build numbers?

scbarnes — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:39:27 GMT

Hi All,

I've noticed a few occasions where developers have wanted to know what Version of Silverlight is installed on the end users computer when they arrive at a site. There are a number of ways you can approach that question that will yield a response, namely in non-IE browsers tapping into the navigator.plugins["Silverlight Plug-In"].description will provide such an answer. In MSIE you realistically need to keep testing the Silverlight.isInstalled(buildnumber) until you get a FALSE (which infers the last known TRUE will yield you your known versions of installed Silverlight).

Now typically with all future builds we classify the number as being "0major.0.4monthday" (e.g. 03.0.41009) the build was released. Now this is helpful, as you can essentially run some for-loops over the month/days to yield the "Silverlight.isInstalled()" but that does often create a lot of redundancy in terms of logic.

Instead, what I'm thinking of providing is a JSON API on microsoft.com/silverlight which will provide a complete and up to date Array of Silverlight RELEASED buildnumbers that we actively support.

Is this something that folks would like or have a need for? Please reply with answers to the below questions

Questions:

Why do you need this JSON Array to exist? can you expand on how you intend to use it?
What else would you like to be added to this array ? (i.e. known browser/platform supported versions?)
How have you found the overall "Get Silverlight" experience in terms of getting users to begin the installation (i.e. not the install wizard itself, but everything prior to this)
What else would like from the Silverlight Team to help you solicit end users to Install Silverlight. Is there a blind spot we have and what would you like us to do (give it a priority weighting as well please).

Please Respond to these questions here:

http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/p/127881/286548.aspx#286548

Via the Comments below.

A tip on learning Silverlight. Throw away your code

scbarnes — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 08:33:10 GMT

You can stare at that blinking cursor inside Visual Studio all you want, it’s not going to give you an immediate insight into how you should architect your Silverlight solution so that it can be reusable and scale.

It’s not that you’re an idiot or aren’t good at programming, it’s just that you are trying to juggle learning Silverlight and building it at the same time. You’re already stressed, at making some bets around adopting the product or maybe you’re trying to still decide if this is still a good bet. Don’t add more layers of stress by trying to find a way to keep your entire code base re-usable.

Yes, your background in ASP.NET or WinForms is going to help you a lot going forward and i bet you have a bunch of best practices or albeit ones that you’re comfortable or at peace with (screw that guy who tells you you’re doing it wrong, did you ship? yes, well back off is what I'd say).

Silverlight is going to be different though, it’s going to require you to rethink a lot of things you’ve learnt in the past. Now you can blame the product for making you change your behavior, sure that can be an easy way out i guess, but you’re smarter than that and you adopted this for the right reasons. You’re rising to the challenge, and i’m telling you now, the code you right in the first phase of your adoption isn’t going to be poetic.

Stop wasting your time trying to build a framework that is scalable, you’ll do that in a few months. Instead, get used to the feeling of producing a solution one that you can throw away – yes i said it, throw away – in a few months from now.

Just ship. As time passes you’ll get experience, just like you did with the technology you’ve just spent x number of years spanking to death. Only this time, you’re going to be in the next early majority and you know what, it’s going to be more fun – i guarantee you.

I’ve spent close to 15 years programming for the web, i miss it. I enjoy it and I've used nearly all languages associated with the web (you name it, I've written an app for it) and for me as a Product Manager for Silverlight, I often grow jealous of the work you do.

Do me a favor though, practice more. As when I leave Product Management for Silverlight and I one day jump into the hot seat with you, I expect – no – demand you teach me what the best practices are.

The guys on my firewall can’t help you just yet, as we’re busy building the actual product itself, but soon once it stabilizes our teams over at Patterns & Practices and Framework crew, are going to show you the Microsoft way, but that doesn’t mean its the right way, it’s just our preferred way.

We hope by that stage you’ll contribute back and we’ll move forward in Rich Internet/Interactive Applications (RIA).

Throw away your code, trust me, you’ll be better next time.

Reality Check: How did you adopt Silverlight?

scbarnes — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:40:59 GMT

As most would imagine, here at Microsoft we are constantly researching various ways folks adopt Silverlight and have quite a large amount of notes on the subject. I however love the old, “Why not just ask them?” approach, so I’d be curious to see how you all adopted Silverlight?

In that what made you adopt it in the first place? (what was the initial spark)

What did you have to do in order to get it into your workplace / customer?

How is it going, positive/negative concerns?

Leave your answers below in the comments section or email me direct scbarnes _ microsoft.com if you want to keep that discussion confidential (will remove your nam

Thank you Silverlight Australia.

scbarnes — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:49:24 GMT

It’s now 2:25 AM here in Seattle, and I’m of course Jet Lagged with a head cold. I figured what a perfect time to update my blog with a big thank you to all who turned out to see me in my Australia wide tour.

I met a whole bunch of you folks from all walks of life, and i am really impressed with the level of skill set housed within a large piece of land at the bottom of the earth.

It was a lot of travel, but fun and the feedback I got on how we are tracking and things we should focus on has been an enormous help to the Silverlight Team and Myself.

I sadly couldn’t make Canberra due to a need to cut my time in Australia short, but I will make it up to Canberra on my next visit back home – i swear to thee ACT dwellers.

I will be uploading my Silverlight / Expression 3 Presentation sometime next week (I did my presentation in 100% Silverlight, now that’s bleeding blue!). Some folks I would like to thank for helping me organize the meetings and went above the call of duty.

Adam Cogan – I owe you dinner next time I'm home. Good chat!
Anthony Borton – I made him use Expression Encoder 3 Trial to record his presentation, only i forgot the 10min time bomb..and so he had to constantly stop/start as a result. Patience of a saint and the only guy who can make VSTFS interesting :)
Mike Fitzsimon – For squeezing me into the Brisbane sessions
Jason Schluter & Peter Griffith – Holding the fort for South Australia Code Camp – due to Virgin Blue Pilots deciding at the last minute they didn’t feel like flying to Adelaide.
Jordan Knight – As always, great drinking buddy and friend.
Tatham Oddie – Like Jordan, Drinking buddy and wikidly smart guy.
Stephen Price – Artist and someone who has a healthy outlook on all things .NET, very motivated guy.
Miguel Madero – Again, helped me remember Melbourne is important too! :)
John OBrien – The king of Deep Zoom world wide. If you ever want to know about Deep Zoom outside our team, he’s your man.

Also big thanks to Microsoft Australia guys, Andrew Coates, Dave Glover and Shane Morris for their support locally. It was fun catching up with my old team mates again and its good to see they still have strong blue passion within them.

I have a lot of feedback to give to our teams here, and again, your feedback is always welcomed either email me (scbarnes / microsoft) or if you ever feel the need to send love/hate mail to the team, you can always do so via twitter - @TeamSilverlight

Thanks heaps Australia Silverlight and I look forward to my next visit.

The ripple effects of Silverlight.

scbarnes — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:38:31 GMT

I have been away from Australia for about a a year now, and I came home the other night and noticed the intersection outside my old house has changed significantly. I thought wow, progress is a beast that never rests. Taped to one of the stop light poles was some flowers with a photo of a young 20 something male – a death had occurred here my family tells me later.

It struck me as odd, as here an intersection was left unchanged for 20 years, and the moment it changed, a death occurred. Was it worth it in the end? as the intention here was to prevent a tragedy but in the end it contributed to one (sure the kid may have been doing the wrong thing or might not have i don’t know).

The point here is one change creates ripples and those ripples can create more ripples and so on.

I meet with a friend who’s working in a research team for Skin Cancer here in Australia. He’s used Silverlight to provide data visualization around some of the research the doctors in his team are working on. It struck me that this Silverlight solution could unlock a small part of the cure or just as good, the prevention to skin cancer? or it could not I'll never really know.

I also meet with a customer who is using Silverlight to help incident reports in a mining company have a reduced turn around for compensation and medical payments to the said victims family. Silverlight here could help enable an employee to have his/her medical bills paid faster or compensation payment to the family return a fast result.

I think its important to put aside the Flash vs Silverlight politics here and simply state this. This product and many products we build in software today have huge impacts on society, and Silverlight for me is being a strong part of that. The latest version of Silverlight has new features that all of the above folks have been waiting to use to unlock the next level of growth their current solution requires and that for me is all the thanks I think our teams need for now.

I don’t care what critics in general say about Silverlight as if all we ever end up doing is the above type of solutions then i am definitely at peace with my contribution to this product and the world wide impacts it has.

Critics always want you to change, fans never want you to change but the ones in the middle push you into areas where change is natural.

Have fun with Silverlight!

The back-story about the brand new Silverlight Blog design & development.

scbarnes — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:09:48 GMT

I’ve just uploaded one of the first revisions of the new blog design to team.silverlighet.net. It’s a more focused design this time and one in which i had the luxury of spending more time on than the one before.

In this post I’ll walk through some of the experiences I had designing it and hopefully provide an insight into the amount of effort that went into making it happen.

The Design.

We’ve got a campaign in market with the tagline “See the light” and It’s pretty righteous in my opinion. We had originally commissioned the design to a vendor, but I simply felt that it was heading in a direction opposite to our brands. In light of this (heh), I objected and volunteered to have a go at designing the look and feel myself.

It was accepted the next day, it was also my own stupidity for volunteering as all of a sudden I went from being a peer reviewer to now being the “vendor”.

Bad move if you have more workload than you can handle already.

Suffice to say, I decided to bring back the fun to Expression and Silverlight as I that our brands have somewhat become boring – mainly because I live and breathe them daily.

I went in the direction of creativity as when I look at the Silverlight branding to me in conveys experience starts here. I then look at Expression’s brand and it’s about well, expressing yourself in a creative way but also in a serious manner.

I then looked at our new Silverlight 3 posters and thought, it’s about time we went back to grass roots, put the ubiquity and press politics aside and just focus on how much enjoyment customers are getting from building with both.

Note: Why I choose Green for 3 was that when you combine blue & yellow, it creates Green. Actually It doesn’t it’s a myth, it really creates black. I just thought it was my inside joke given there’s a lot of myths floating around about the products anyway – call it my wit working in over drive.

When you create a RIA or Branded Experience, you can’t but help inject creativity into the mix, and I simply wanted a design that echoed this.

The Development.

Given I’m also the vendor which translates now to being both designed and developer, I then had to come up with the goods of development.

I simply owe a deep amount of gratitude to both Graffiti CMS and jQuery as these two pieces are a C# blog developers dream.

I did hit a few “snags” though in the development lifecycle. The first being the fact that I needed more out of Graffiti CMS than it could offer out of the box, for example – I wanted to put a couple of extra fields in the comments and out of the box it’s not possible.

JavaScript Rox!

I then had to write my own bypass to the workflow, using LINQ to SQL, jQuery and JSON I went about my business.

Passing JSON back and forth between ASMX (Web Services) is somewhat a painful learning curve, but none the less I have it done now so chalk that up to lessons learnt.

jQuery is by far the most superior JS framework I’ve ever used – i’m talking 10+ years of hacking JavaScript to mind you. It’s simple, elegant and flows naturally and am glad we as a company are supporting it more and more.

Graffiti CMS

Graffiti CMS, is simple and elegant for what it does. It lets me get on with the templating UX and less on hand rolling the codebase from the web.config upwards. I’ve reached out to Telligent to see if i can pay for the source code as I’d like to also contribute back to this blog engine as it in my view has way more potential ahead of it.

The Blog.

Well you can now see the blog for yourself, live, there’s still a bit of rawness associated to it but that’s simply due to lack of content for now. As time marches on leading up to our launch, you’ll find a bounty of content soon enough to subscribe your RSS readers to.

Make a wish

A lot of or official announcements will channel through this blog, so part of the features was that I put in what I call the “Wishlist box”. The purpose of this box is to allow anyone whom wants to comment to aslo make a request to the Silverlight / Expression Teams. This data is feed monthly into our planning / review teams, so use it wisely.

Twitter.

I have a few ideas on how to integrate Twitter into the comments, I won’t say more as I want to execute first, tell second – suffice to say, I think it will be fun.

Comments.

The comments themselves use jQuery a lot, for me it was a case of wanting to do something different with blog commenting and so this is first part of the direction I’m heading. There’s more to come and as someone whom sprinkles my comments throughout the blogosphere, I have a few ideas on what I feel would be great if only blogs would change in xyz direction

example: The <textarea> grows as you type as well as there’s a bit of a paper with lines background. I wanted to encourage people to comment and also make them feel part of the blogs design as well.

Good Web Citizen.

Hanging out with some MVP’s recently convinced me that we at Microsoft need to take a more firm stand to becoming better web citizens. I decided to work the extra mile in this blog to ensure it validates with w3c and so if you run the site – as of the time of writing this – it will get the green validation tick.

The Bad.

I’m not happy about the navigation at the moment. I had to pull it today before launch, but it will be there soon. To me this is bad UX, but I hadn’t the energy to debate it further as it was either ship or hold up other campaign dependencies. Ship won.

No Silverlight.

This blog is a great case study for jQuery, but it’s quite weird I don’t use Silverlight right?

I have the Silverlight bits half done, I’ll be adding them soon but I wanted the degraded experience up first, see how that’s baked and then roll out the Silverlight additions.

I’ve adopted this approach for many years, where I always started out with the basic HTML/JS experience. If no disruptions have occurred that are noticeable, i then roll out the Flash experiences. As all to often, when the site failed or people complained, the plug-ins usually get thrown under the bus first where it could simply be bad fundamental design.

Instead, layered approach is cheaper and more focused. It also provides a good baseline to determine the “before” and “after” in terms of measuring success/failure of a given plug-in based experience.

I’ll be layering more and more as time permits, but I’m excited about this design and am quite proud of it.

Check out the blog and leave your feedback!

http://team.silverlight.net

Peter Elst Interviews me on Silverlight 3

scbarnes — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:27:16 GMT

I rarely do interviews or podcasts as typically I find them goofy, and I despite my blogging/twitter prowess, am quite a shy guy.

That being said, I find value in Peter and openly respect his approach to technology as whilst he obviously prefers Flash over Silverlight, he still reminds me of the folks whom are always keeping an open mind on how things unfold in this industry.

He’s asked some great questions and I’m sure he won’t agree with my responses, but that's ok, it’s better to ask and answer than assume.

The Interview:
http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2009/04/08/interview-with-scott-barnes-about-silverlight-3/trackback/

Of course already there’s a bit of negativity in the comments below, mostly due to ignorance of Microsoft and so on. None the less, I hope I answered appropriately.

Scott Out.

Sports can be competitive. Who knew! :)

scbarnes — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:27:00 GMT

Steve just did a great post on how well we’re doing in the sporting scene, and it’s worth checking out over at the team.silverlight.net blog.

It does provide some basic common sense rebuttals to what MLB.Tv folks stated today in the CNET article. If you’ve not read it, then I’ll save you the trouble, basically Microsoft aren’t doing the MLB thing this year and now the MLB.TV CEO’s throwing down some comments regarding Microsoft and Silverlight.

To me, it’s one of those situations you just cringe, roll your eyes and wonder what all the hype is about – as well, there’s always two sides to a story right?

Ok, Let me look for myself

None the less, being an Aussie living in the US, I was curious as to what all the greatness associated with this whole thing was really about (I didn’t watch the Silverlight version of MLB.TV so for me it was always a “US thing”).

I asked one of the guys in our team to fire up his browser. We went to the site and this is what we saw on one of the events.

A closer look for those visually impaired.

I was looking at this asking what the hell is NexDef? So I dug a little deeper via online and found this:

http://www.mlbsupport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2257

I’ve read a lot of users having issues, so upon closer inspection I think it’s Java?

Try updating your Java client
http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp

Also run the nexdef installation file as admin by right clicking it and choosing run as admin.

MLB.TV Support Admin

Ubiquity seems to be not relevant here

Ok, so despite the ubiquity of Flash 9 and above, turns out you need extras to have HD video via Flash? Well in the MLB.TV’s case it does anyway.

I’m confused. What is all the hype about Flash in this? (open question).

It’s also interesting that the admin rights are required to install NexDef, given the quote from the CNET article states:

First, baseball wanted Microsoft to make it possible for users to download Silverlight without having to possess administrative rights. When people are at work, it's often the company that possesses those rights and employees would need authorization to download the player. That frustrated plenty of MLB.com subscribers, according to the source

Well, I guess that hasn’t changed then. Admin rights still required and anyone who has ever sat in a company with a SOE (Set Operating Environment) will tell you – bypassing IT is rarely ever achieved and watching baseball at work is also rarely ever embraced. None the less, why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

I’m losing faith in online journalism more and more

In the end, it seems an awful lot of free PR for MLB to raise awareness of the new season for baseball, we just so happen to be a great brand to drag into this mess.

What’s our rebuttal to this madness?

I like Steve’s comments about this whole thing in the second paragraph of the teams blog post:

While Flash 9 may have high penetration, the Swarmcast NexDef plug-in that helps power MLB's HD experience has virtually no adoption. Ubiquity here is a red herring – what customers really want are high quality solutions. Silverlight has been doing that since its inception and already supports the ability to deliver true HD using IIS Smooth Streaming with no additional plug-in required.

That’s the main point here (for me anyway) for all, brands will come and go when it comes to using a platform, the fact there is choice is a positive step and ultimately the press can feed off this either way they can to fuel page views, but ultimately people are installing plug-ins.

Yes, NexDef has zero ubiquity, yet there you have it, installing not only 1 plug-in but 2!

Guess Ubiquity is somewhat over-rated?

Where is the real success vs. failure then?

Two years ago, the choices were limited to either SD on Flash or maybe HQ via Windows Media Player / Quicktime? Today… more choice in HQ/HD. In part, the first success story in all of this is the fact choice is now available!

Secondly, now comes the real metric that sites are unlikely to ever publish, just how many folks abandoned the experience?

As ubiquity maybe the flavor of the month in certain Adobe’s staffers eyes, but at the end of the day abandonment rates are where success begins and ends.

In my case, I bailed – well for two reasons, Baseball utterly bores me and the above experience just annoyed me. I’m not alone in having a bad experience as well.

http://www.mlbsupport.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=27&sid=64f1271343889771bcb02938963d8d01

Plug-ins don’t make bad experiences, you can though?

I think it’s fair to say both Adobe & Microsoft ship the plug-ins, what you do with it and how you scale/implement is entirely up to you. If it fails, then is it the plug-in or implementation of the said plug-in experience? It’s easy to throw the plug-in under the bus as being faulty but thankfully with the power of the internet, that’s a short lived accusation. Bless the alpha geeks with blogging power! :)

Case and point. A while ago, a journalist echoed Adobe AIR + Flash and security breach regarding Amazon + Flash Media server. Adobe responds in kind,

this statement is inaccurate. All information transferred between client and server is encrypted when using RTMPe, not only the commands to start and stop play. No compromise has been made in the server software to boost speeds or security as claimed by the article – Flash Media Blog

It appears according to Adobe that Reuters got it wrong, and there’s quite a lengthy rebuttal from Adobe staffers. Which is fair, as if your product gets dragged through he mainstream press and you don’t get a chance to respond, it’s someone poor form.

Too long didn’t read, give me the short and skinny of it all.

Last summer NBC held the most widely viewed sporting event in the history of the internet with the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. For Beijing, NBC delivered 1.3 billion page views, 70 million video streams, and 600 million minutes of content (WOW!) -- making it possible for fans to view every minute of every event from their computer. Users spent on average of 27 minutes watching video on the site (vs 3 minutes on other Olympics experiences) which is unprecedented for Internet video.

Enough said. Silverlight proved itself with the Summer Olympics and will continue to do so for the Winter Olympics. Don’t believe us? watch the Winter Olympics, CBS March Madness on Demand (MMOD), later this week Masters Golf tournament and more to come..

Judge for yourself as that’s all we ask.

What makes Silverlight better than JavaScript/CSS/HTML?

scbarnes — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:32:32 GMT

Damian Edwards stayed at my house a week leading up to MIX09 and he’s had an amazing impact on our product teams whilst he stayed. One question he did provoke my way was what makes Silverlight better than JavaScript/HTML (forgot the actual wording but the meaning i walked away with was just that).

I could of given Damian the usual workflow, video codec's etc response that I'm sure many have heard umpteen times before. Instead I just deferred my answer and thought it over some more as I really hadn’t thought of the two being better than the other. In that, as a Product Manager for Silverlight to create a debate between these two approaches to the web is what we’d commonly label “breaking into jail”.

Getting back to basics

I instead spent a week or so getting back to my grass roots before I adopted Flash/Silverlight many years ago. I re-discovered some JavaScript & XHTML passion and have now become more aware of something in which i think can answer Damian’s question.

The simple answer above all is, that you’re working in a controlled environment. That’s why Silverlight could be a better fit and before you raise your jQuery swords and lead the charge against the arrogance of the few that which is plug-in’s let me ask you to pause ever so briefly and hear me out.

I’ve noticed that when I check “show errors” in browsers of my choice, I get a lot of various websites throwing a JavaScript error to the point in which it amazes me to no end why these continue to happen. It’s one thing for a random blog to have one but for major corporations, it’s simply just bad form.

On top of this, you have the browser related issues where if folks don’t do their homework with regards to CSS they can in turn cause a number of visual issues, resulting in a degraded experience (something Damian is quite vocal about and so he should be and agree with his arguments).

It’s my sandbox, I control all whom dwell in it

I think plug-ins in general provide a controlled state to play in, they aren’t perfect but their development workflows can enforce (via compile time / tooling) much stricter success criteria than JavaScript/HTML/CSS can provide today. A team internally made a point of comparing their internal struggle with AJAX vs. Silverlight and came back with a lower bug count than they did before (admittedly it’s somewhat hard argument to push as a case and point, but it was interesting all the same).

Having absolute universal control over the XAML (DOM) and absolute pixel precession is definitely favored via plug-in, that being said it can still also be achieved with CSS / HTML (provided you’re skill set is capable of adhering to this).

To do this outside plug-in state, still requires a lot of trial and error when it comes to CSS production (jQuery though is technically brilliant at reducing some of this pain), as you’ll be adjusting everything from margins to padding along with injecting various DIV/SPAN tags to represent containers or inline elements that produce the visual result you’re after.

Does this mean HTML is dead?

Absolutely not. The web today is an amazing thing to behold when you think about it as JavaScript, HTML & CSS are simply the first language set that the world has collectively agreed upon. I honestly don’t think you’d ever get this decided in today’s software climate, so it’s a rare and beautiful thing to be apart of.

I still think however we’re clinging onto the few scraps of HTML we have today, and have noticed over the years many folks creating rules of engagement with these few tags – as if they were given to us as by our forefathers as being all that is great.

I simply think we’re holding onto them for the previously mentioned point, in that they are simply the first and probably the last agreed standard we’ve had all collectively blessed. I honestly don’t think when HTML was first drafted as a spec that we’d be seeing concepts like Virtual Earth or <insert your favorite AJAX / AJAJ > being used in the form it is today.

Hang on, scraps of HTML? you better explain yourself buddy.

That comment was sure to be a redflag, so let me explain in detail what i mean “Holding onto the scraps of HTML we have today”.

My theory is that HTML as we know it today, seems to be lacking in depth (probably why there is so much conflict with the language). I’ve seen over the past 10 years many arguments arise over the correct use of this blessed technology (I remember the famous <B> tag vs <Strong> argument. I also saw the DIV vs. LAYER tag war arise…) I’ve witness HTML’s birth from beginning to now, and I’m still yet to see anyone camp win over 2/3rds of the other.

Instead I think HTML/JavaScript/CSS & Plug-ins are going to have an interesting and exciting fusion with one another. I honestly don’t think anyone technique is miles ahead of the other as it will always depend on what you want to achieve, who is going to write it and what your intended quality control gates look like.

I vote for hybrid approaches for now, let’s just use both and evolve like we have been given today and explore in more depth what works vs.. what doesn’t.

In the end it’s all semantics and “it depends”.

You tell me what’s better and then tell me how Silverlight can improve. Please don’t beat me up, this ones just me thinking out loud after using both approaches since 1995.

Note: I’m not a Product Manager of Internet Explorer and my influence there is probably less than yours all said and done.

Dear Silverlight, where’s my view source?

scbarnes — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:04:29 GMT

Chris Messina is quoted as saying the following:

There’s been a long history of innovation on the web founded in open access to the underlying source code that first websites, then later interactive web applications, were built on. The facility of having ready access to the inner workings of any web page has been tantamount to continued inspiration, imitation, and most importantly, the ongoing education of subsequent generations of designer-developer hybrids.

He later goes on to start slamming plug-ins like Apollo and Silverlight on how they don’t offer up “view source” capabilities to support his first paragraph.

Allow me to retort if i may.

Firstly, HTML/JavaScript is all one is able to yield in the view source, and there’s not a lot of innovation to yield as a result of doing this action. If you wanted to view how a blog engine may work, view source won’t provide this, in turn you’ll have to gain access to the server’s capabilities of producing such code – assuming you’re allowed.

Secondly, stop copying my code, it pisses me off. I used to read comments like this in various AJAX applications in the past, I used to laugh at it because i thought it was somewhat witty that a developer would take the time to put that in there. I also note how sometimes in CSS files etc I see all to often © Copyright in the headers etc.

Whilst Chris may opt for the open web being the righteous path to open sourcing the worlds computers, the fact is people are protective of their work and all to often CHOOSE to not share their (IP) intellectual property. If they however want to share such IP then by all means do so via various open source depositories found around the web.

Having the right to view source doesn’t mean you’ve got clearance to steal or reproduce another persons work. It’s that persons right to determine if their work is to be copied, as after all they created it?

If you note, on Chris’s blog he’s opted to use the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license. At first glance that seems fair and open, but if you read the license closely you’ll note that you can’t re-use his work for commercial purposes. Sounds fair right, if it’s for free or non-profit work, go ahead. If you make a buck or two, sorry answer is no.

Whilst I agree with the license in question, I disagree with Chris as I'm seeing a double standard as on one hand he’s argued that no restraints should be placed on the web, he’s in turn put one in place for commercial entities.

Thirdly, I object at times to open source principals as there are many ways you can look at it’s setup. Some prefer to believe that if we share code we can all innovate as a community, the reality is that personas usually get in the way of innovation and a democratized source code management rarely ever works out.

If people also prefer to see open source actually go beyond it’s current existence, start taking your name away from the code. As whilst it appears free, there is still revenue being generated from the freeness of it all. Fame is still a commodity that’s got value, and spokes people for open source rarely ever fly around the world for free or out of their own back pockets. There’s usually a sponsor involved.

The difference with commercially owned solutions is that there’s no hidden agenda, other than making profit off the sweat and tears involved in creating the said software.

One can argue that this breaks free thinking in terms of open source, i on the other hand simply extend a welcoming hand to the world in which free trade exists.

View Source is about as useful as Bookmarks. You mileage may vary.

Just for the record, you can open up a .xap file as if it were a .zip file and the source is available to you. If there is code tied to assemblies (DLL) and you want access to that, try asking the author. You maybe surprised at the answer.

Replaced my MSDN Graphic Header with Silverlight

scbarnes — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:54:48 GMT

When you create an MSDN blog here at Microsoft you’re pretty much given very little access to it, especially if you want to customize it. I’ve managed to basically hack my way around this through both CSS and JavaScript manipulation.

Tonight, I decided to hijack my graphical header and put Silverlight over the top, as basically given I’m a Product Manager for the darn product it just makes more sense for me to dogfood the product.

That and I was curious to see how far I could push the envelope on blogs.MSDN.com.

I quickly put together a Twitter feed which pops up every few seconds with what I’m saying to the world. It cycles through the latest feeds from my account.

Brownen from Soul Solutions stated that it could get pretty annoying, I think she maybe right but I’ll see how it goes and if feedback is negative, I’ll approach it differently in the next wave of creativity.

Hope all like it.

Special thanks to Jonas and Emil for their code, as I found combining Emil’s LinkLabel control with Jonas’ Yahoo Pipes Twitter Proxy to be a better fit overall.

I hate it when a designer touches XAML..

scbarnes — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:42:10 GMT

I’ve meet with a few die-hard Silverlight developers in my time and some feedback I get at times is how designers produce bad XAML.

“..I hate it when a designer touches XAML..” – oh? why?

My first thought was, “bad XAML?” how on earth can a designer produce bad XAML. *confused look*

After digging I find out that one of the pet hates is that the designer doesn’t name their controls properly or that they’ll use a rectangle instead of a grid/canvas etc to visually represent the UI.

I then hold up my hand and say “stop”.

Here’s the lesson folks.

Expression Studio and Visual Studio allow you to collaborate with designers and developers. We’ve made it so you majority of the time never need to look at how the tools generate XAML as it just works. That all being said, it ENABLES you to work together, you still need to WORK together.

Meaning, setup rules of engagement with one another. Tell your designer that you need certain User Controls for certain contexts. You expect a clear naming convention and so on. Let the designer execute their creative vision and don’t impose too many rules on them as you could starve the process of creative flow but agree on how the pipeline will work UPFRONT.

Don’t expect the tools to automate your communication between developer and designer, as to do that would be a one neat trick.

Word for today: Communication.

Egads… it’s a Silverlight Spy!

scbarnes — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:11:34 GMT

When I’m working in Silverlight I typically like most developers heavily rely on the breakpoint/debug workflow.

Although this is extremely powerful, I at times need to inspect what’s been loaded in a more hierarchical manner to ensure my various UIElements are loaded as per my instructions via code.

To do this in Visual Studio is doable, but I find it provides a little too much information than I require.

Enter Silverlight Spy.

A brilliant WPF application made by KoeKoen Zwikstra from the Netherlands (Silverlight Consultant).

Silverlight Spy is a neat little application, as it not only allows you to snoop over the entire XAML DOM, but it provides a great insight into what’s loaded in your user interface via the “statistics” tool.

It’s a must have for all serious Silverlight developers in my feeble opinion ;)

I used to use Lutz’s before this one, but found this one to be a more options available for me to inspect (i.e. stats is brilliant idea). Lutz’s can be found her:
http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/

Download Silverlight Spy out here:
http://silverlightspy.com/silverlightspy/download-silverlight-spy/

Silverlight is all over The Moment..

scbarnes — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:32:17 GMT

CNN

CNN is inviting people witnessing “The Moment” to take part in a special iReport assignment by e-mailing their pictures to themoment@CNN.com. The photos will post immediately to iReport.com, CNN’s user-generated news community, and shortly after the oath of office, viewers and users can see the resulting synths on-air and online. In staying with CNN’s long tradition of using technology to reinvent political coverage, the network will feature the synths on the Magic Wall. The use of Photosynth within the multi-touch environment will be made possible by the strong relationship among CNN, Perceptive Pixel and Microsoft.

CBS

Microsoft, along with partners Vertigo and Move Networks, collaborated with CBS to build a live HD streaming experience using Silverlight. CBS will provide the application to its more than 25 owned and operated sites to then roll out to their own local stations. Visitors to the CBS sites will be able to watch a variety of inaugural activities as well as reports from CBS correspondents on site. The CBS experience will provide customers with HD-quality video, multiple camera angles of events and unique features such as Twitter integration. Although CBS was unable to participate in official PR due to time constraints, we will look to drive awareness via blogs and press outreach early next week.

Presidential Inauguration Committee (PIC)

Microsoft worked with partner iStreamPlanet to enable live and on-demand video streaming of the official Inauguration events at the PIC web site: www.pic2009.org. The PIC will begin streaming video of events on Saturday, January 17, with the train ride that will take President-elect Barack Obama from Philadelphia, Pa., to Washington, D.C., and the stops in Wilmington, Del. and Baltimore, Md

Scott, why should I use Deep Zoom?

scbarnes — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:26:00 GMT

I’ve been asked this a thousand times and i often give a thousand different answers, as typically each time you ask me, I think of something new to do with it and respond.

Deep Zoom is one of this fascinating differentiators we put into Silverlight that can be used and abused in a multitude of ways, often the only limitation imposed with it’s usage is imagination.

My personal favorite usage of Silverlight DeepZoom was actually watching a member of my team, Arturo, give a presentation on Expression with it. Arturo being the creative soul he is, decided to tell a story in a non-PowerPoint way (hey he’s a Microsoftee, so extra bonus points for this). This to me was exciting and fresh, as the medium went beyond the browser in so many ways, it now become an outlet to convey a message or story.

Tonight, I saw the same concept by Scott McLoud on Ted.com. Scott gives a brilliant lecture on the Understand Comics and he focus the attention on combining the old with the new, specifically how do you take a comic strip found on paper today and introduce a new approach to the medium of telling the story.

Watch this lecture on Ted.Com, and now to answer your question about what should you use Deep Zoom for?

Answer is simple, you tell me. Arturo has already.