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

With Silverlight 2 comes a richer subset of the .NET Framework, more front-end controls to work with including a more reliable set of the basic controls, and the freedom to program in a high-level static language such as Visual Basic or C#, or a dynamic language such as IronPython or IronRuby. It will be these latter languages -- products of the collaboration of some of their originators and Microsoft -- that may stir the most attention, as many perceive these less rigid, more adaptable dynamic languages to be better suited to Web development.

But that particular feature will have to wait a little while, perhaps for a later beta of the toolkit, BetaNews discovered today.

As a new tutorial posted today makes clear, the new Silverlight Tools Beta 1 (also available for download from Microsoft) is meant to be integrated into Visual Studio 2008. As that download page indicates, the toolkit for VS 2008 today contains templates for use only with C# and Visual Basic, the two languages supported by Silverlight 1.1 -- which was the first version to enable application programming support.

As the company's Silverlight general manager, Scott Guthrie, wrote a few weeks ago on his personal blog, there may be reason for hope. "Developers can write Silverlight applications using any .NET language (including VB, C#, JavaScript, IronPython and IronRuby)," Guthrie wrote.

Scripting is somewhat different, of course, than writing a stand-alone distributable application. But scripting is also where dynamic languages thrive, and Microsoft dynamic languages developer John Lam posted one example this morning. It involves a new and heretofore unmentioned extension called Dynamic Silverlight (DSL), which Lam says comprises a mere 712K of packaged code.

Unlike its VS 2008-based counterpart, DSL can be executed from a command-line console. That console serves as a kind of bargain-basement deployment testbed, from which the templates you need to generate a running application can be assembled literally on the fly. Those templates are capable of gathering the necessary files for a fully deployed Silverlight 2 application, distributing them over the Web to a designated browser (by zipping them into a single file and uploading it), and launching the app remotely.

Among the files DSL distributes are the XAML files the DSL app needs to recreate its front end (its UI) on the client. Arguably, it would be nicer if one had access to VS 2008 or Expression Studio (whose next version also entered Beta 1 today), for building XAML files using an environment that's nicer than Notepad.

For the graphic Web designer, it's the Expression product line that's typically associated with development, more than Visual Studio. Perhaps for this reason, the development cycles for Silverlight and Expression are currently out of sync, BetaNews learned today.

Though Expression Studio also entered its beta cycle for the 2.0 version today, that timing appears to be coincidence. The graphic developer will need Expression Blend 2.5, whose preview edition is now downloadable from Microsoft, to build SL 2.0 applications.