Move Your Silverlight Skills to the Native Web with KnockoutJS

transcript

Move your Silverlight skills to the

web with KnockoutJSData binding, MVVM, templates, commanding. On the native web.

A little about me•Avtex pays me to write code during the day. Then I do it for free at night.

• Built cool Silverlight stuff for 3M

• Wrote some fun Silverlight projects

• Now a web developer in Y with KnockoutJS

@JudahGabriel

Silverlight is dying?!

“I’ve met people in the most remote areas of the world, living in straw huts without electricity or running water, who have mobile phones.”

-Nat Friedman, co-founder of Xamarin

“I've got a dual-core internet connected super-computer in my pocket.”

-Scott Hanselman

The mobile computing explosion makes web plugins

a tough sell

Silverlight can no longer be “WPF Everywhere”

Q. What’s wrong with this app?

A. Everything.

Silverlight is a technology of the gaps. And those gaps are shrinking.

“Silverlight is a technology of the gaps. And those gaps are shrinking.”

“Silverlight is a technology of the gaps. And those gaps are shrinking.™”

-Me, just now

Local Storage for client-side data

…and much more.

<audio> for music

<canvas> for graphics Web Sockets for real-time

communication

<video> for movies

Furthermore, the native web has evolved, and is

now super-awesome

The software world is moving away from web plugins like

Flash and Silverlight

“For the future of the web, we need to get out of plugin prison.” -Vic Gundotra, Google VP of Engineering, Google IO conference

“Plugins were created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. The mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where plugins fall short.”

-Steve Jobs, 2010

“HTML5 lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins.”

-Steve Jobs, 2010

“For the web to move forward, the Metro-style browser in Windows 8 is as HTML5-only as possible, and is plug-in free. The experience that plug-ins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web.”

-Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft President

“We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile devices. This will allow us to increase investment in HTML5, which is universally supported on major mobile devices.”

-Adobe press release, November 9th, 2011

“Key components that would have allowed Silverlight to become a real cross-platform framework were cut from releases. Silverlight's fate was sealed when they started supporting Windows-only features in the plugin.”

-Miguel deIcaza, founder of Mono and Moonlight

“Silverlight had a bright future, and that it could turn to fill an important void, not only for web development, but for desktop development in general. I am very sad that Microsoft strategy cut the air supply to Silverlight.”

-Miguel deIcaza, founder of Mono and Moonlight

“We’ve heard developers express concern about the long term future of Silverlight for Windows Phone. Please don’t panic; WinRT in Windows 8 Phone can be viewed as a direct evolution from today’s Silverlight.” -Larry Lieberman, Microsoft, Windows Phone Dev blog

What does this mean for Silverlight?

What does this mean for devs like us?

The death of web plug-ins

Stay in Microsoft land:WinRT

Move to the web:HTML5

Data binding!Change notification!

MVVM!Data templates!

Why KnockoutJS? It gives us things like:

KnockoutJS lets us migrate our Silverlight skills to

the web

Fine! Show me web development with KnockoutJS :nom nom nom:

2. Change Notification

3. Data Templates

The native web is the future. KnockoutJS makes

it easy.1. Data Binding

Thank you!(Hope this has helped!)

Try KnockoutJS for yourself, right in your web browser:

learn.knockoutjs.com

…follow my blog: debuggerdotbreak.wordpress.com

…steal my slides and code: bit.ly/kosilverlight

…tweet me: @JudahGabriel

Move Your Silverlight Skills to the Native Web with KnockoutJS

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