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Silverlight is more powerful than Web Forms, as
a chain saw is more powerful than a hand
saw. With Silverlight, you can make your user much
happier and more productive, which is your
ultimate goal. But like anything else
powerful, Silverlight is also double-edged. You can
also make your user much less happy and less
productive by using Silverlight, from simple
confusion down to inflicting physical pain
in under 30 seconds. Read my article “Using
WPF for Good and Not Evil” to see
examples of the good and bad things you can
do with this new powerful environment.
Most Silverlight instruction teaches you
only how to do
things, without discussing what you should
be doing and what you shouldn’t, or where
and when you should do something versus when
you shouldn’t, let alone why. I consider
that to be malpractice – as bad as teaching
someone how to fire up a chain saw without
also teaching him which end of it to hold.
Most instruction in Silverlight has
concentrated on media-heavy consumer
applications. Silverlight has now advanced
to the point at which it can seriously
challenge WPF for line-of-business
applications. This class concentrates on the
parts of Silverlight most useful in
line-of-business applications.
This class is designed for developers,
architects, and managers switching from
Web Forms to Silverlight. I
teach
you how to start implementing in Silverlight, but I
also teach you how to carefully choose and
employ Silverlight’s features in ways that please
your users.
The goals of this class
are:
1.
To understand the fundamental architecture
of Silverlight and to understand the specific
features of Silverlight that are most useful in
enterprise applications, and
2.
To understand how to design your Silverlight applications to make users happier and more
productive, and
3.
To provide you with the understanding of the
fundamental principles in items 1 and 2
that will allow you to continue to progress
on your own.
Note: If you already know how to program
Silverlight, and want a class in pure user
interface design, see my class on
Developing Software That
Doesn't Suck
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