So Much Is Happening The Silence Is Deafening!
June has been a madhouse month; I’ve been working 80 hour weeks as has just about everyone who has anything to do with Silverlight, and yet there has been very little noise. It is, as they say, the quiet before the storm.
As you know, we can’t yet talk about the biggest developments, but I can say that many of us are working on making sure that when Silverlight 3 ships the site is ready with videos and related material that is completely up to date. That means of course that existing videos must be checked for breaking changes, and new videos must be created to highlight the exciting new features in Silverlight 3 that have not yet been announced. We expect to have a great deal ready on the first day, and to keep it coming over the first weeks.
Much more about that as soon as the cone of silence is lifted.
New Silverlight – New Projects
To coincide with the release of Silverlight 3, I’m starting two new projects that I believe will greatly enhance my ability to meet the needs of a very broad range of developers.
One of the concerns voiced in the past year, for example, was that the videos and tutorials were fine as far as they went, but each stood in splendid isolation, with little connection to the reality of creating software.
Yet, we also know that one of the great benefits of the How Do I video series is that a developer can watch any without having to watch them all.
I have found what I hope will be a terrific way to provide the best of both: the open and documented development of projects complex enough to touch on nearly every aspect of Silverlight, and to raise many deeply related issues such as
- Two Tools: Visual Studio and Expression Blend
- managing data
- web services
- design
- dealing with changing specs
- patterns
- code management
- designers, developers, dezelopers and more
- emerging best practices
- real-world tradeoffs when resources are constrained
- and dozens of other issues.
I’ve named the overarching project AgOpenSource -- an on-going development project that will be completely tracked,documented and explored within a wiki-document housed inside my blog.
AgOpenSource will consist of creating applications from initial brainstorming , through design, development, testing, delivery and what we are calling recycling. Now, not every application will be developed fully and not every application will be a candidate for the entire process, but if we do in fact build something that works and if it has value for our site, recycling indicates that we would then use that application as part of silverlight.net.
The documentation for AgOpenSource explains that it will start out as a “Glass House” project in which the information flow will be pretty much one way. I’ll continue to create videos, mini-tutorials and so forth and I’ll also be building all the bits and pieces myself.
It is my goal, and I expect to achieve it quite quickly, to move AgOpenSource to CodePlex and to make it an Open Source project, as described in the documentation. I believe that will greatly enhance every aspect of AgOpenSource (hence the name) and I very much look forward to that transition.
VideoWiki Reborn
The first application that we’ll tackle within AgOpenSource is the VideoWiki project that was conceived back in April. This project was discussed in a number of posts, but nowhere do I see a full “vision statement” of what it is. Clearly there is much brainstorming and “sketching” to be done.
A VideoWiki is best understood as a HyperVideo with interchangeable links. Briefly, and you can find much more detail in the VideoWiki page of the AgOpenSource documentation, a HyperVideo has links associated with various times, scenes or events in the video. When you follow the link you may be taken to additional information or even to another video.
With a VideoWiki, the set of links and where they take you are uncoupled from the video, and you may choose from a variety of links for any given video. For example, imagine that when you choose our video on creating Out Of Browser applications in Silverlight 3, you are offered to watch it in our VideoWiki player. If you agree to do so, you are then asked which links you’d like:
- Links targeted at programmers new to Silverlight
- Links targeted at experienced programmers
- A link set created by <famous author>
- A link set for those who like lots of extra information
- A link set for those who like extremely technical commentary
Once you make your choice, you load your video and your link set, and as you watch, links slowly appear in a window next to the video. If you click on one, the video pauses, and a new video opens with additional information.
The Better Videos Project
Starting the week of July 20, the previously announced Better-Videos project will begin to ramp up. The effect, I believe will be more effective videos produced more quickly, but this is an experiment in the truest sense; no one knows what the outcome will be.
Because the internal day-to-day progress of this effort is not directly related to Silverlight programming, I’ve sequestered the blog entries about the Better-Video project in the Video Bloglet that you can access from the sidebar on any page
From Twitter to Tutorials
Neither of these projects will slow down the other avenues for information and interaction. In fact, I expect to add more. For now, here is what I see as the pyramid of information flow.
Short Bursts – Twitter
Mini-Articles & Flashes – Quick Bits
Substantive Articles – This Blog
Diary of the BetterVideo Project – Video Bloglet
The AgOpenSource Project – the AgOpenSource Wiki
Deep Dives Into Silverlight – Mini-Tutorials and Videos
Extended Analysis of Silverlight Programming – Full Tutorials
Social Networking? Facebook, LinkedIn, My Books & Photos
Timing
Timing is everything… and while we’ve not announced the release schedule for Silverlight 3, I can say that I expect to be finished with my sequestered work before I come back from vacation (mid-July). At that point I will pour myself into AgOpenSource and my other projects, keeping ahead of the curve and responding to the three drastically different needs of our community:
- Providing an On-Ramp for those who are new to Silverlight
- Meeting the needs of Intermediate Silverlight Programmers
- Providing raw meat for serious geeks ready to get off the carousel.
| My single focus, however, remains the same: working Silverlight programmers. |
Right now, it is the silence before the storm, but by the end of July, the signal : noise ratio should approach 1.