Robs Usability Development : Silverlight, ASP.NET, Ajax, Agile, MVC & Volta

Microsoft released the .NET source code today, available from withing Visual Studio 2008.

Many of us have been longing for this moment, and many others have pointed out that it is very unwise to use it in the light of patents and copyright.

Especially that copyright discussion has kept us busy for a while but i’m convinced that here in Europe we have nothing to fear. You should keep in mind that if you have plans on brining your software to the states it is a whole other ballgame.

Check the following links for more information:

Tonight at nine, i’m flying to Milan for the Microsoft Envision Event. The primary goal of the event is to bring together developers and designer from across Europe to discuss the future of Digital Communication. I was honoured to be invited to attend this promising event.

I’m very much looking forward meeting the Silverlight and Expression teams, and of course the Panel discussions on stage.

But most of all I’m looking forward to the discussions that i will hopefully have with all the other participants from across Europe and learn what their vision is on where we are and where we are going.

I’ll try to keep you posted the next few days, and hopefully post some nice pictures of the event.

If you are reading this and are also heading for milan, this is what i look like, see you there!

Robertjan Tuit

When you want to start learning Silverlight you have a difficult chioce to make. Start with the incomplete 1.1 2.0, or with the Javascript driven 1.0.

There is another option, if you primary goal is learning. You can try working with WPF, restricting youself yo the functions that will be in the Silverlight 2.0 Beta.

And for the browser part you can play around with 1.0. This will hopefully prepare you for the Silverlight flood that with happen after Mix.

For 1.0 Microsoft has created a new starter website :
Silverlight 1.0 Firestarter Website

Have Fun!

Robertjan Tuit

One of the most asked questions about Volta is how it will compare to other technology from Microsoft Silverlight.

Is it going to replace Silverlight, or is Volta just a step to when Silverlight matures.

In the Volta Microsoft Press Pass Q&A with Erik Meijer, former professor at the Univerisity of Utrecht now program manager of Volta, says :

Volta is an MSIL to MSIL toolkit aimed at making writing distributed applications easier. Silverlight is an implementation of the .NET platform that therefore will automatically benefit from the advantages of the Volta toolkit.

And in the last blog post from the volta team we read:

All the benefits of the Volta toolkit, such as declarative tier-splitting and asynchronous programming or declarative import of JavaScript libraries into .NET, will apply to programs deployed to the Silverlight platform. In fact, we are in the process of replacing the browser helper objects used to facilitate debugging in this preview, which host the regular desktop CLR in IE and Firefox, and are replacing them instead with the Silverlight 2.0 runtime.

Does this mean that Volta will eventually operate it’s tier-splitting funcionality trought silverlight? This would maken not Volta OR silverlight, but Volta AND Silverlight the technologies to watch the coming years. I cant wait!

Robertjan Tuit

p.s. If you’r wondering what the car has to do with the story, only it’s name: the very beautifull Toyota Volta.

After seeing the briljant wiimote implementations of Johny Chung Lee I had no doubt whatever that a lot of other projects would follow. And indeed everyone has started cooking with the WiiMote and the Coding4Fun .Net libraries.

Recepy 1: Tumbling horse

• 40kg Spring horse
• 1 WiiMote
• 1kg Need 4 Speed

http://wiimotehorse.tumblr.com/

Recepy 2: Project Maestro

• 1 WiiMote
• 100kg WPF
• 20kg LCD Scherm
• 2 WiiNority Gloves

http://labs.cynergysystems.com/Silverlight.html

Recepy 3: Lasergame

• 2 Wireless sensor bars or candles !?!
• 2 Wiimotes
• 1 room with places to hide

http://www.wiili.org/forum/wiimote-laser-tag-t1196-s7.html

Recepy 4: XNA Studio
• 360kg XNA Studio
• 1 BallRace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ8raY6RwtU

Conclusion

I think these are not the last “out of the box” implementations that we will see. The next few months will tell, and i’m realy looking forward to it.

Enjoy the rest if your weekend!

Robertjan Tuit

update 5-1-2008 13:36: Cynergy Labs: Project Maestro

With Visual Studio 2008 you have the ability to keep working with 2.0 projects. And when everyone in your team works with 2008 this works perfectly.

But when a few keep working with 2005 you have to solve a few little problems.

.sln files
Visual Studio 2008 converts a solution file to a new format, after which 2005 is not able to open it any more.

When you check the actual changes made to the solution file, in 95% percent of the cases it is only in the header.

It changes "Format Version 9.00" in "Format Version 10.00" and "# Visual Studio 2005" in "# Visual Studio 2008".

If you change these values back Visual Studio will eat the files again.

.csproj files
Project fikles are not converted. But when you create them in 2008 and try to open them in 2005 there are some things you need to check.

For example the new variable $(MSBuildToPath) used by 2008 is unknown in 2005, the exact same $(MSBuildToPath) works in 2005 and 2008. You can just change the project file and it will work again.

The Solution
These little changes can be done by hand, but ofcourse it can also be done automagicly.

To make this work you need to create 2 solution files, one for 2005 and one for 2008. When you maken changes in the 2005 file, you just let Visual Studio open the file and save it as the 2008 file. For the other way around you use a batch file and a SearchAndReplace application to copy the file and make the changes to the solution file.

You can download my own very simple implentation here