My ‘Simple Physics Game using Silverlight’ application was finally approved and listed on the Silverlight.net Community Sample Gallery.
Here is the link: http://www.silverlight.net/community/samples/silverlight-samples/simple-physics-game-using-silverlight-38090/
Had to wait a bit for this one. Had problems posting it to the website. Finally things worked out. Another nice achievement !
In time to come, it will be interesting to see how the Silverlight platform stands against IE 9 . The reason for coming out with Silverlight was the need to create a platform which enabled creation of RIA (and also to compete with Flash). But many of the features which Silverlight currently has are slowly becoming available as part of HTML5 implementation by most common browsers.
IE9 has included many HTML5 goodies along with a very optimsed javascript engine. Things which were out of reach of ordinary javascript are possible today with HTML5 and optimised javascript. Also, there other HTML5 features like ‘WebSockets’ and ‘WebGL’ that will make it to mainstream very soon. Considering this, almost everything you can do today with Silverlight is going to be possible with HTML5 and IE9.
Another big advantage of using HTML5 is that you dont need to install a plugin. With dual core mobile phones round the corner, very soon many mobile browsers will start supporting HTML5 to a great extent. Already there are many spectacular HTML5 applications getting created.
I can foresee the dilemma which companies selling UI controls for Silverlight are going to have. They will also have to create a version controls for HTML5 as well. So you have same company selling two versions of same control, one for HTML5 and another for Silverlight !
Going ahead, I think there needs to be some change in Silverlight strategy from MS. I would like to see Silverlight platform to cover some aspects of HTML5 also, for example:
It is really going to be interesting to see what next versions of Silverlight are going to have and how Silverlight will try to retain a special identity of its own.
My ViewStatePeeker add-on for firefox recently got reviewed and is now out of Sandbox. This now means that the add-on is available for everyone to download and use
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/viewstatepeeker/
Microsoft has made available the book “Programming Windows Phone 7″ as a free download. You can also download sample code in VB.NET and C#.
Surely this move is going to provide a boost to those planning to start learning Windows Phone 7 Application Development.
Recently, I have been searching a lot for resources on learning programing in Marathi. One of the biggest hurdles in development of IT in India in my opinion is lack of such resources. There are many who argue that programing is best taught/learned in English and I don’t dispute that.
Screenshot of Scratch with language changed to Marathi.
But, in a country like India where penetration of computers is increasing every day, not everyone who has knowledge of English. Young age is the right time to get into programing, but English makes the (already steep) learning curve , steeper. Children and many teenagers, spend hours playing games, in absence of anything meaningful to do. There are many countries in the world which have contributed a lot to computer science and programing, with no significant English speaking population. My point not about “not learning” English, but about making enough resources available in the ‘IT hub of the world’, so that people/students who still picking up English, can start with computer programing.
Recently, I came across an open source programing environment called , Scratch . It is a product from MIT and supports couple of Indian languages . They even have some documentation available in Marathi. For other languages which are not supported, anyone can always volunteer and help with the translations. Scratch is a visual programing tool. It helps you create fully functional programs, animations and interactive stuff, using drag and drop. The tool exposes many complex programing concepts in very easy to understand manner. Once a learner has mastered Scratch, he or she can move on to learning more complex programing languages.
Download Scratch
http://scratch.mit.edu/
Getting started guide (Marathi)
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/sites/infoscratch.media.mit.edu/files/file/GS_14_mr.pdf
Reference guide (Marathi)
http://info.scratch.mit.edu/sites/infoscratch.media.mit.edu/files/file/RG_14_mr.pdf