as of now its a dead link - might want to fix it

Fixed, thanks :-)

Yeah, Ive been playing with Silverlight (BARELY)... it really looks like a good thing. I guess what Im confused about, though, is how to access the visual objects within the code. For instance, if you have XAML for the textbox, how do you access it in the code behind? Or can you? Another slightly annoying thing is that you cant actually *use* the designer in 2008 - its just for show. You actually have to type all the XAML in or use Expression to do the design. Its a minor annoyance, but us Visual Studio developers have been so used to using the IDE for everything that this seems like going backwards a bit. The overall roadmap for technologies is interesting... we're going SOA, we're going MVC, Silverlight and WPF... my goodness it doesnt take long for a technology to gather dust... what to learn... ugh..

I hear you. I'm trying to ramp up on a whole new set of technologies also. And despite the fact that we love bitching about it, we'd have another complaint if we were bored, right?

My original aim here was a two-part blog, culminating in an example that was useful in some way. And that's probably what I'll end up doing. However, the question that keeps screaming at me is where it all fits in, from Microsoft's point of view. I agree with you regarding the IDE's as they stand. To me, Expression seems like FrontPage with a sexy dress on, aimed at the amateur Web designers of mom and pop shop websites. I use VS for everything, coding, CSS design, etc. I don't expect professional designers to use VS, but I would imagine that like me, they would find the Expression IDE clunky and overpopulated, quire like SharePoint Designer 2007. I like to open up my stylesheet in notepad and take it from there. Maybe I'm showing my age!

Something tell me that Microsoft is keeping secret the true ultimate destination in the shape of a set of products/technologies. On the one hand they are trying to appeal to the young amateur market; PopFly, MySpace, etc. On the other hand they are now in an open source environment facing new competition in an RIA world. We're talking all the new bits of the jigsaw: Silverlight, Ajax, Web Services, Data Clouds, Mashups, Web3.0, Semantic Web, Microformats, etc. Microsoft ain't stupid. I think they have a master plan here and only time will tell if they will deliver the knockout punch by finding a unique way of combining these technologies. I remember when the neighbors would come around to see a computer on a desktop :-O

xlar54,

In answer to your question, I'm just getting into it like you. But, my understanding was that the object model was to be accessible both declaratively and imperatively. I will look into the IDE side when I prepare for the follow-up post. You might want to listen to these two podcasts with Jesse Liberty (who heads up the Microsoft Silverlight project), he discusses when and where to use the declarative versus the code approach (Shows 9-10):

http://www.sparklingclient.com/

Anthony :-)