Silver Lining for Windows Azure -- Silverlight 2 Sample Hosted in Azure
OK, so I'm starting to sound repetitive about my excitement around
Windows Azure, but I really think it will help developers create new products
with an all time low cost to enter their specific market. Not only will it cost less to enter into
their market, I think it will help them scale their service offerings as their
business grows. We all want our
businesses to grow, but many of the initial development choices one makes when
driving to release a product do not always make sense when your customer base
grows in a few orders of magnitude.
I'm also stoked about the Silverlight Toolkit released 10.29.2008
(haven't used stoked in a while - I wonder if I can bring it back...). These controls make developing for
Silverlight a real joy. I was skeptical about
the Silverlight 1 release, as well as the initial release of WPF (which is like
forever ago), not because of the architecture or technology, but because of the
lack of controls. In the case of WPF, many
of my fellow developers refused to move from Windows Forms, because of the rich
tool sets they already had. I think MS
heard the call and has worked to remedy the situation.
I melded an Azure Web Role project and the Silverlight Toolkit
sample to give you guys a quick download, so you can play with them
together. I hope you like it, and I hope
it helps you explore some of the new technology. I call it SilverLining.
You'll need the Azure SDK, and Silverlight tools.