Silverlight 3.0 will be released to the web today July 10, 2009 (I heard it’s around 10am PDT).
We can follow it here:
http://www.seethelight.com/
There are several info (Q/A) I want to share.
- Q: Which Visual Studio versions and editions will it support?
A: It will support Visual Studio 2008 (all editions, including Express). For now, the release will not support Visual Studio 2010 BETA1, though it will be supported in the future versions of VS 2010.
- Q: Can I have multi-targeting feature in Visual Studio 2008 to develop both Silverlight 2.0 and Silverlight 3.0 inside the same machine?
A: Unfortunately, No. You must choose to install either Silverlight 2.0 or Silverlight 3.0 toolkit to work with Visual Studio 2008. Multi-targeting feature will be supported in Visual Studio 2010.
UPDATE: You can install SL2 SDK and SL3 SDK side-by-side and use msbuild to
still maintain both versions simultanously. In VS, however, you can
only create applications for the version of the Silverlight VS Tools
you have installed.
So, to summarize, if you have installed the Silverlight 3 VS Tools,
you can still maintain your Silverlight 2 projects in two ways:
a) install the SL2 SDK and build them from command line using msbuild
b) upgrade the SL2 project to SL3 and then build in VS
- Q: I’m new to Silverlight development. Which one should I start with? Silverlight 2.0 or Silverlight 3.0?
A: Silverlight 2.0 and Silverlight 3.0 are built over the same CLR. If you have learned Silverlight 2.0, you will find what you have learned in Silverlight 3.0. If you start with Silverlight 3.0, you won’t miss Silverlight 2.0 things.
I think better to start with Silverlight 3.0.
- Q: What about Silverlight 3.0 supports to Linux?
A: It will be supported by Moonlight project. Now they are working on the Moonlight 2.0 (equals to Silverlight 2.0). It took long because there is a big gap between Silverlight 1.0 and Silverlight 2.0. I believe it will take shorter to support Silverlight 3.0 once they have done on Moonlight 2.0.
CMIIW