Comment: Leaving Las Vegas

Posted on 10 Mar 2008 at 09:55

This is my fourth and final report from the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas. The general view seems to be that it has been a very worthwhile and successful conference, and there seems to be smiles on most of the Microsoft PR people.

Most of the delegates have made many new contacts, and perhaps a few new friends.

In these days when all the content for these conferences is made available online there initially seems little point in attending.

If this is the way you feel then I suggest you treat yourself and get along to one of these if you can. The chance to mix with other like-minded people and occasionally talk to the major movers and shakers in the industry is an experience that is difficult to beat.

With the aim of investigating more about Silverlight, I have just sat through a talk on Silverlight and dynamic languages. This talk showed some of the open-source work currently being done adding languages to Silverlight.

Because of the dynamic link runtime you can integrate almost any language. This breakout showed a Silverlight web application built with Ruby Python and C# all in the same application. PHP is also available - impressive stuff.

The ability to code Silverlight applications in the language of your choice could well be a very compelling advantage over Flash for many.

So, as I get ready to head for home, the words of the lamented Douglas Adams come to mind, "Goodbye and thanks for all the fish."

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