I decided to get adventurous and see what all the fuss was about. So, I'm going to record my experiences as I try to "do something" with Silverlight! Fasten your seat belt and come on a drive-along. No guarantees. The sole aim here is to get a successful install of all the working parts. I know absolutely nothing about Silverlight so this will be truly ab-initio.
If I was slow to make the jump on this one, it was probably because I have had a hard time figuring out how the run-of-the-mill developer will suddenly become artistic overnight and vice-versa with designers suddenly spouting algorithms in their sleep. Microsoft's red-suspendered marketing brigade describe Silverlight as a "cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering next-generation media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web." I'm starting to think that as far as Silverlight and some of the other emerging technologies from Redmond are concerned, we have not seen the big picture yet.
I already had VS 2008 installed on my VMWare Workstation and had just downloaded the .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit, when I decided to go for broke with Silverlight. I navigated to the Silverlight Get Started page and worked from there. I wanted ALL the toys so here's the order in which I installed things:
1) .NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit
I was then prompted to install Windows Power Shell 1.0 and ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions.
2) Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008
Includes Beta 1 runtime and SDK (thanks Ailon)...
Follow Robert Cameron's advice on getting the SDK to show up in VS 2008.
You can optionally download the source code and unit tests for some of the controls.
3) Expression Blend 2.5 March 2008 Preview
4) Expression Web 2 (391 MB)
Finally, download the Deep Zoom Composer. Check out the Hard Rock Memorabilia sample of Deep Zoom in action.
Follow the steps here to create your first Silverlight project. Also, check out Jesse Liberty's Silverlight For Total Novices site for some more resources.
We haven't actually done anything with Silverlight yet but we're off to a good start. I'll be back soon, hopefully with something useful built!