In 1991, a group of Sun Microsystems engineers led by James Gosling decided to develop a language for consumer devices (cable boxes, etc.). They wanted the language to be small and use efficient code since these devices do not have powerful CPUs. They also wanted the language to be hardware independent since different manufacturers would use different CPUs. The project was code-named Green.
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Silverlight is Microsoft’s cross-browser, cross-platform browser plug-in that allows the creation of interactive web applications that employ high quality streaming media, vector graphics, images, and animation. Deployed as a plug-in for the major browsers on the Windows, Mac and Linux (supported by Novell) operating systems, web developers can craft interactive applications that have an identical user experience on the vast majority of web browsers deployed today. Silverlight addresses a disconnect that exists today in web development workflow where the design intent of graphics designers and interaction designers cannot be faithfully communicated to and crafted by the web developers. In Silverlight, this intent is created in design tools like Expression Design and Expression Blend and passed off to web developers in XML-based XAML data files. The fidelity of the designers’ ideas is kept as there is a clear separation between the design in XAML and the code in JavaScript.
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Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2008 introduces a whole new set of .NET technologies that will revolutionize, once again, the way you develop smart client and web-based applications; the most notable being LINQ, WPF and, of course, Silverlight. For most of us working in and around web application development in the business world, Silverlight is a big step forward; especially if you consider that it provides clean coding practices with extensible languages (e.g. XAML and C#). It also provides some of Visual Studio’s rich programming model that we have become accustomed to and can no longer live without; such as class libraries, debugging capabilities and IntelliSense among many others.
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Installing Smart Development Environment for Visual Studio Installing SDE-VS (Smart Development Environment for Visual Studio) is an easy task. However, there do have things that you should be aware of. For example, about the relationship between SDE-VS and Visual Paradigm Suite, and how to import a valid license key. This chapter will show you how to get SDE-VS started from downloading to running the application. Here are the covered topics:
• Downloading Visual Paradigm Suite from the Internet
• Installing Visual Paradigm Suite and SDE-VS
• Start the application
• Importing a valid license key
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VisualSVN is a transparent integration of the Subversion version control system to the Visual Studio development environment. VisualSVN allows you to take full control on any changes in the project that are made by you or your colleagues. With VisualSVN you can easily see the full history of modifications and restore previous versions of your project. So, you can treat it as a “smart time machine”.
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Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality, rich user experiences. With Visual Studio 2008, organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information to help them make effective business decisions. Visual Studio 2008 enables organizations of every size to rapidly create more secure, manageable, and reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista™ and the 2007 Office system.
Visual Studio 2008 delivers key advances for developers in three primary pillars:
- Rapid application development
- Effective team collaboration
- Breakthrough user experiences
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Laying Out the Foundations
Now that you’ve convinced the client that you can create a cool web site to complement the client’s store activity, it’s time to stop celebrating and start thinking about how to put into practice all the promises made to the client. As usual, when you lay down on paper the technical requirements you must meet, everything starts to seem a bit more complicated than initially anticipated.

It is strongly recommended to consistently follow an efficient project-management methodology to maximize the chances of the project’s success, on budget and on time. Most project-management theories imply that an initial requirements/specifications document containing the details of the project you’re about to create has been signed by you and the client. You can use this document as a guide while creating the solution, and it also allows you to charge extra in case the client brings new requirements or requests changes after development has started. See Appendix B for more details.
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Okay, enough of the convoluted history of Java the island and Java the platform. And yes, that is Java, the platform.What began in 1995 as just another programming language is now formally known as a platform. Beginning as a platform-neutral, Internet-friendly development language, Java has evolved into a means of creating programs for just about anything. Let’s step back to the beginning and see how it came about.
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