Silverlight 2 beta coming soon, tutorials available

Silverlight 2 will be a major update that focuses on Rich Internet Application (RIA) development where developers can write in any .NET language. Scott Guthrie announced the First Look at Silverlight 2 on his blog. The upcoming Beta 1 release will include WPF UI Framework, rich controls, rich networking support, and rich base class library.

In addition, there are links to eight tutorials that drill into and explain the different programming concepts, including the new controls, layout management, networking, data-binding, styles, user controls, and templates. The tutorials begin with "Hello World" with Silverlight 2, contininue through how to retrieve data and populate DataGrid, data binding, how to use the Silverlight 2 controls for master/detail scenarios, and a desktop version using WPF.

The Beta1 release of Silverlight 2 is 4.3MB in size, and takes 4-10 seconds to install on a machine that doesn't already have it. Once Silverlight 2 is installed you can browse the Web and automatically run rich Silverlight applications within your browser of choice including Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Safari.