Altoros Helped to Organize the First-in-Belarus Microsoft Silverlight 3 Presentation

by Alex KhizhniakMarch 20, 2009

At the meeting, Silverlight 3 new capabilities and release dates were discussed, as well as the latest version of Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0 was demonstrated.

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Session highlights

On March 19, 2009, Microsoft Silverlight 3 technology was officially presented to Belarusian .NET developers during the local .NET User Group meeting, which was organized by the Minsk Institute of Management and Altoros. Sergiy Baydachnyy of Microsoft Ukraine demonstrated the new capabilities of Silverlight 3, spoke on the scheduled release dates of the technology, and answered the numerous questions.

The session was followed by the speech of Andrei Varanovich, Microsoft MVP, who demonstrated the new version of Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0—the technology for defining, executing, and managing workflows. 130+ participants took part in the event and 53 more attended the presentation the next day in Brest, another Belarusian city.

“I’m really pleased that so many Belarusian developers not only take an interest in Microsoft’s cutting-edge technologies, but also use them in real projects.” —Andrei Varanovich, the leader of the Belarus .NET User Group

Silverlight for enterprise applications

Just 12 hours after the announcement of Silverlight’s new features at the Microsoft MIX ’09 conference, Belarusian .NET developers could see them with their own eyes. Sergiy Baydachnyy (Microsoft Ukraine) started the presentation with the announcement of the community technology preview release. He proceeded with the demonstration of 3D support on a video example, rotating dynamic plain surfaces around different axes, creating small code examples, and providing a detailed explanation of how it can all be done.

After covering the offline work of applications, Baydachnyy shifted to data validation in elements, creation of dialog boxes, and tool tips support. Then, he touched upon the improved ability to work with bitmap images, new media formats support (MPEG 4, RAW audio and video, HD Photo, H.264 and ACC.LC decoders), improved data binding (updates control and simplified processes), and answered questions from the participants.

During the discussion, Sergiy gave examples of large projects created with Silverlight, referring to the official website of the Beijing Olympic Games and a few telecom projects. He also informed the audience about the dates of the Silverlight 3 intermediate and final releases. To wrap up the presentation, he added that Silverlight is “positioned not as an ad creation tool, but as a means of developing enterprise applications” and invited everyone to make a coffee break.

During the second part of the event, Andrei Varanovich (the leader of the Belarus .NET User Group) made a review of the new version of Windows Workflow Foundation. He covered the new types of workflows, the improved integration with WCF and ASP.NET, and also simplifications in the object model that allow for creating applications faster. Apart from that, Andrei dealt with the Oslo and Dublin projects—the code-names used by Microsoft to denote a new set of services for launching and monitoring activities in Windows Server and a new modeling technology.

From time to time, Sergiy Baydachnyy supplemented Andrei’s presentation with a minute account of ISS (Internet Information Services) and WWF, gave examples, answered questions, and was joking about his work and vacation on Cyprus. The next day, both speakers left for Brest to participate in the local .NET User Group meeting and to take a stroll around the Brest Fortress.

To learn the details about Silverlight 3, check out the presentation delivered by Sergiy Baydachnyy or listen to the session’s audio recording.

You can also take a look at the presentation introduced by Andrei Varanovich or examine the audio recording with his session speech to discover new features of Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0.