Silverlight is a new Web presentation technology that is created to run on a variety of platforms. It enables the creation of rich, visually stunning and interactive experiences that can run everywhere: within browsers and on multiple devices and desktop operating systems (such as the Macintosh). In consistency with WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), the presentation technology in .NET Framework 3.0 (the Windows programming infrastructure), XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language) is the foundation of the Silverlight presentation capability.

When Tim Berners-Lee at CERN invented the modern Web, it was intended as a system that allowed static documents to be stored and linked on a network-based system. Over the years, innovation grew, with the logical next step being "active" documents that are generated at the time they are requested with time-specific or user-specific information. Technologies such as CGI empowered this. Over time, the ability to generate documents on the Web became paramount, and the technology evolved through CGI, Java, ASP, and then ASP.NET.

ASP.NET provided a milestone in the ability for a developer to develop quality Web applications quickly using a server-development paradigm and best-of-breed tools from the Visual Studio line of products.

06:44:39 2008-09-15