Understanding agclr.dll

My colleague Dr. Z observes:

Where a Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh project is created with Orcas 2008 beta 2, references are set by default to several assemblies, which are stored in the Microsoft Silverlight directory, such as agclr, mscorlib, system, System.Core, system.silverlight, and system.Xml.Core. If you are familiar with the .NET framework, chances are you have seen the mscorlib assembly. Other assemblies are readable, except for the one on top of the reference list, agclr. If you are curious about what agclr or agclr.dll stands for, you may be surprised to know that ag stands for Silverlight -- because ag represents silver in the periodic table of the chemical elements, according to one blog by Laurent Duveau. I have yet to confirm that's true, but it all seems to make sense. Indeed, abbreviating Silverlight with such a choice is very scientific, if not too chemical. Any comments?

I'm surprised that he doesn't mention the most interesting part of the DLL's name, agclr.dll. That's right, for those of you who haven't heard, Silverlight 1.1 sports its own compact version of the .net Common Language Runtime that works on the client...including on Mac. Find out more at the MSDN Silverlight Dev Center.

And if you're in Mid-Atlantic, come see the Andrew, Dani, and Dr. Z MSDN Roadshow, where we'll be discussing Silverlight and the Expression suite of tools. Our first stop is this Friday in Baltimore...don't miss it!

Zhiming Xue's WebLog : Silverlight Assembly: agclr.dll