Silverlight 2 Beta 1 debuts with the hope of dynamic language support

FROM MIX 08 - While Silverlight was first sprung upon the public as a distributed graphics program for the Web, Microsoft is now expanding it as many thought it might, into an all-purpose, Web-based, cross-platform extension of the .NET Framework.

At one level, it's the dream of distributed software developers of decades ago: a rich programming environment with too many controls to list all in one page, the capacity to deploy applications cross-platform, and the flexibility for the logic to use the programming language of the developer's choice. We knew things were headed this way; we were just never certain of when.

Today, Silverlight 2 has entered the public Beta 1 stage, along with its development toolkit for Visual Studio 2008. The runtime platform may be downloaded here.

As Silverlight product manager Brian Goldfarb told BetaNews this afternoon, the company is moving towards enabling the runtime graphics platform to be programmable using the general concept of "managed code," as opposed to the choice of either C# or Visual Basic to which Silverlight 1.1 was limited. "Whatever language, Microsoft doesn't care, it's just code," he told us.

With the right tweaks, Goldfarb added, one can make any .NET control work with Silverlight 2. Thus any control designed for use with the Windows Presentation Foundation for general applications, has the ability -- theoretically at least -- to work with the new Silverlight.

That said, Goldfarb later remarked that current .NET controls should be tailored for use with Silverlight, pointing to the possibility that some developers may need to make "the right tweaks" one way or the other.

We asked him whether he expects the Silverlight runtime to become as ubiquitous as Adobe's Flash, its key competitor, and arguably the dominant player in this field. "It's not a question of if," he responded, "it's a question of when. And when is coming soon." While Microsoft's own Web services use some degree of Flash today, every new rich Web application it develops from here on out will be based on Silverlight.

That said, the company wants to be careful not to give the appearance that it's pushing customers into deploying Silverlight, the way it once appeared to be pushing them to use Internet Explorer. Consumers will never be forced into installing Silverlight, Goldfarb promised, not due to the need to respond to someone's anti-competition findings, but out of its own principles. "Consumers should want to install Silverlight to get these great experiences," he said.

For now, Silverlight 1.0 will continue to be deployed on the company's own servers, though it plans to make the switch the moment 2.0 is officially released. One exception to the rule may come during the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where Microsoft is scheduled to partner with NBC Sports in the delivery of online content for the US market. Goldfarb left the door open for the Olympics site to require the Silverlight 2 beta platform.

So for that reason, he characterized his company's betas as "RTM quality...second to none." He did not go into similar assessments of RTM quality.

Next: The developer's perspective on Silverlight 2...