Barry Gervin: Expression Blend for Developers @ TechDays Toronto

As I write this, we’re well into Day 1, Session 2 of the Toronto edition of the TechDays Canada conference, and ObjectSharp’s Barry Gervin is doing his presentation, Expression Blend for Developers.

Since Expression Blend is a UI building tool that is separate from Visual Studio, it’s typically seen as a tool for designers rather than developers. However, as Barry pointed out in his presentation, the division between designers and developers isn’t so simple, especially here in Canada, where developers often wear many hats, including that of UI designer. Besides, UI design isn’t just a bit of flourish you add to a software project at the end – it’s something you’ve got to consider from the very beginning.

Expression Blend makes the development of front ends, whether Silverlight or WPF, a great deal easier. You can do in minutes with Blend what might take hours in Visual Studio, driving yourself insane with XAML editing.

Watch this space in the coming weeks – I’m going to be writing articles on Expression Blend and using it to build rich internet user interfaces for Silverlight.

This article also appears in my personal tech blog, Global Nerdy.