You can now go and get the Dynamic Silverlight bits here. This will let you run Silverlight 2 applications based on IronRuby and IronPython in the browser. It feels like real WPF actually - you make xaml files, you make ruby files, you embed them in an silverlight applet in a webpage and you are good to go.

Not only this - but you can also build your Dynamic Silverlight apps with Mono on a Mac. the downloads have the things you need to do so.

XBAP based WPF applications will have the ‘full richness’ of WPF - but you will only run on Windows machines. I still need to sort out the security sandboxing models of XBAP applications and for Silverlight applications. How do you interact with local resources from a Silverlight app?? Can you?? How much client side state can you store in a Silverlight app - can I store 20 mb of static data in client memory?? Regarding XBAPS - can you do everything you can do in an installed WPF app via an XBAP app?? Questions, questions, questions.

With MIX 08 Happening this past week, there is just a ton going on in the Microsoft community. I also had to download the iPhone SDK (even though I have not bought an iPhone yet) just to see what it was all about since that was the other bug techie dev news this week IPHONE SDK!

Well - I am still waiting! Why am I posting? Well - a few things happened - 1st - I cancelled, and re-ordered my MBA (yeah - that is the lingo MBA). Why did I do this? Well - a friend and collegue of mine said to me “hey Chris - did you know we get Apple corporate discount? You should have used that for your MBA!”. I said hmm… I logged on - checked out my discount - and it was a ~$150 savings. Nice - so - since my order was still “not shipped” from Apple - I cancelled it, and re-ordered it (same specs etc) thus - saving $150. That said - I would have had it by now if I had not done this :(.

More … That same friend and collegue came to me the other day and said “Hey - J&R just got a demo MBA, you should go check it out, I saw it - and I did not think it was ’all that’”. Also - I have been debating the idea of getting a MacBook Pro in stead (you know, more beef for the bucks, etc, etc). So - I went to J&R and saw, touched, compared, etc. Needless to say - it IS just what I want. I STILL LOVE my Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet. I LOVE the smallness factor - it REALLY matters to me. I WAS impressed - I will continue patiently waiting. As of now - I will be waiting till the 22nd or so till I get my MBA

So - on goes the saga - I want my (discounted) MacBook Air!

-Chris

OK - so I ordered my 1st Mac in some… maybe 12 years?!?
MacBook Air. I figured a few things:

1. It is a 1st generation evolutionary (not revolutionary) bit of hardware. It is very sexy There may be issues with v1 hardware, but on par - it will be a Mac either way - and there is a good shot it will suit my needs well.
2. It is a Mac with just about the same specs as my ThinkPad X60 tablet. I really like my tablet. I really like small and light - a lot.
3. It is Unix :)  (I have had Linux machines @ home and work for at least the past 5 years).
4. I will re-learn the mac thing and see what all the current hype IN THE DEVELOPER COMMUNITY is about.
5. I will get to see more good UI design standards in practice.

Although I can program java - I am still largely “long Microsoft” personally. Any C\C++ I have done has been on Windows. Lets see what else we have as programming models for desktop applications. (I have done years of web stuff - I am still interested in desktop apps these days). The ‘architecture’ stuff, the people stuff, the agile stuff, etc - these are (thankfully) OS agnostic.

Check it out - it really looks lovely, small, lightweight, flat as can be, cool - really. I am NOT the uber-gadget-geek I once was. I am (trying hard) to generally be frugal. I have a lovely family that I would generally rather invest in - as opposed to my geek gadgets. This is really cool geekery - but it does have a purpose for me. So - kill me for getting a Mac as I have been talking about for a few months now - AND for it being cool, geeky, etc.

There are a TON of folks buying Macs these days. I am on an interesting mailing list with lots of experienced programmers/ agile folks. There are chains going on about whole dev teams ‘going mac’. It would be silly to ignore this. It would sort of be like ignoring the dynamic languages - there are reasons people are changing to Mac. On the server - Linux is there - big time - but it has been so many years and it is still not really on the desktop - except for dopes like me willing to spend hours on end getting drivers running, recompiling stuff you would never really care about as an ‘end user’ of a desktop OS.

Enough blabber. I will check in as my Mac experience begins in a few weeks.

-Chris