The minute we began working with Silverlight 1.1 we knew Web Application Development would never look the same again and we've been working on a Silverlight Application for SharePoint over the last few months using Silverlight 1.1 (which is going to be supercool btw) and have been waiting longingly for the Beta 1 of Silverlight 2 to appear.

Like a hitech version of the Dance of the Seven Veils newly minted Microsoft VP Scott Guthrie has just posted the first revealing posts about the upcoming SL 2 release at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/02/22/first-look-at-silverlight-2.aspx . (scottgu.com is where the pictures are posted to and is not accessible when writing this post)

Sporting a subset of WPF features such as controls, databinding, layout and styles but most importantly supporting .net code running client-side its ironic that while WPF itself has gone nowhere (dont believe me - check the market www.jobserve.com, skills keyword WPF, EU jobs 51, yes thats 51 jobs (perm and contract) in the whole of the European union) Silverlight is set to introduce a whole slew of developers to XAML.

Microsoft has just thrown a very big stone in the web application development pond and the ripples are going to be huge.