Many of you have heard of Microsoft’s statement about the future of Silverlight (or rather, the lack of a future for Silverlight) from PDC 2010. This announcement has startled many developers I know, and it adds to the uncertainty that already existed regarding the future of WPF. This uncertainty could be a disaster for companies that try to decide what technology they want to choose for their next generation client side platform.

I believe Microsoft hasn’t done a good job explaining this matter to their clients and I came to TechEd Eilat 2010 expecting, in a way, to clear up this mess in my head so I know what to tell my customers.

Unfortunately I don’t have breaking news, but I believe I have some things sorted out in my head, so here it is. I’m basing my thought about this subject on numerous conversations I had with my established colleagues from Sela and outside of Sela, conversations with Microsoft employees.

The way I see it Microsoft is shifting its weight towards Web applications, applications that are base on HTML standards and that can be viewed from multiple device types and platforms. At the same time, I really don’t see how smart client technologies like WPF and Silverlight can vanish from the scene, for the following reasons:

• There are currently no good development tools to develop complex client side applications in HTML5 and Javascript. Furthermore, Javascript is a dynamic language that cannot be compiled – who would want to deploy an critical organizational application which is based entirely on HTML and Javascript?
• Microsoft is too much invested in these technologies – Visual Studio 2010 was written in WPF.

So the way I see it, Microsoft might increase its offerings for web applications development, but in the mean time continue supporting WPF, or more likely Silverlight.

Again, this is my opinion. What do you think?

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We’re back from the party! We had loads of fun! Free alcohol and geeks – what can be better?

Anyway, the main show was a Mashina concert which was excellent! The hotdogs after the concert were right on time. Well played Microsoft!

Some pictures:

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This is my 2nd day on TechEd Eilat 2010. I meant to write more, but some logistical problems prevented me from doing so.

That’s just an excuse, I didn’t write mostly because I didn’t feel I have anything new to add to the readers. In the developer track, in my opinion, there are no outstanding announcements, at least not for most developers who stay on track and follow public announcements.

Nevertheless, I’ve spend the last couple of days discussing with my fellow workers and some other people I know the future of client side development.

This subject deserves a post of its own, so stay tuned…

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These days I’m writing labs for the Windows Phone Training Kit, focusing on Silverlight for windows Phone 7 applications. In one of the labs I needed to work with a popup that would cover the entire screen. So the question is, how do I get the screen resolution of my device?

Digging into the documentation didn’t do the trick. One would expect to find this info under the DeviceExtendedProperties class, but it’s not there. Apparently the best way to get the resolution is by calling

((FrameworkElement)ApplicationFrame.Content).ActualWidth
((FrameworkElement)ApplicationFrame.Content).ActualHeight 

So there you have it.

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In case you haven’t noticed, Windows Phone Silverlight library is missing some very useful controls. One of the controls that cannot be found in the library is the very useful WrapPanel.

Just to make sure we know what we’re talking about, a WrapPanel is a panel that stacks its elements one after another – either horizontally or vertically. When an element overflows off the edge of the stack it is wrapped to the next line.

Like I said, the WrapPanel is not included in the Windows Phone Silverlight library…

BUT fortunately, you can now find it, along with other controls, in the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit, which was released a few days ago.

Have fun!

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So, I have a few ideas about posts, now I only need to invent a time machine so I could actually have the time to write them down.
In the mean time, I will be packing my bags - Very soon, the Sela bus is leaving for TechEd Eilat.

• Manu Cohen-Yashar – Windows Azure Storage
• Alex Golesh – XNA Game Studio 4.0
• Gil Fink – Entity Framework 4
• Sasha Goldshtein – Performance and Debugging in VS2010

Soon…

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