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SO i have searched on stackoverflow and there does not seem to be any answers for this. So if you can, What is the best way to actually fully learn silverlight? I have books on it but it seems by the time you get to Chapter 15 out of 30 chapters you already sort of forgot what you learned and have to start again. Trying to jump right in seems more frustrating since you don't have any idea what the tools at your disposal is or how to construct things.

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Visit the silverlight website it has a lot of tutorials and samples.

http://silverlight.net/

Find or make up a small project where you can use it. Try and find a friend or someone you know to help you learn.

The only issue with the books is that some of the content gets out of date quickly because of the quick releases!! :)

If you have played with WPF that will help. But if not the best way is to just get your hands dirty with silverlight as quick as possible..

Silverlight rocks!!

PS. Have a look at Pete Browns Silverlight 4 in Action book published by Manning.

http://www.manning.com/pbrown/

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I learned by diving in and building an application, along with a book (Matthew MacDonald, "Pro Silverlight 2 in C# 2008", ISBN 9781590599495) and lots of googling, watching videos, www.silverlight.net, and some help from Stack Overflow.

But I guess it really depends on how you learn best, and what you want to do with it.

The basics of it come down to knowing XAML, Blend (maybe), and how to build services.

I found it a steep learning curve, but now have a fairly major line of business app in production. I find that it's certainly a lot more productive than trying to build a similar app using browser technologies (HTML/Ajax/jquery, etc.)

Hope that helps...

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http://silverlight.net has a bunch of short "how do I" videos. Watch them with VS2008 open and play along. A book is OK, but Silverlight 4 is just around the corner.

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  • I started with general idea of a project, found out what I'd need to succeed with it, then watched how do i videos and integrated things I liked from the videos into the project. Eventually with all of the individual ideas in the videos woven together, I made a pretty nifty piece of software. Once you get your ideas down, you'll be able to use the ideas learned in the videos to do pretty much any silverlight control.
    – Rob
    Commented Feb 18, 2010 at 15:52
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Start by coding a small silverlight application - this would be the best way to learn, hands on.

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I jumped right in with a big LOB project. There were books that were suggested to get the team started, but I never read more than the first couple of chapters of any of them. I don't learn as well that way as I do just writing lots and lots of code. It was a little challenging in the beginning but ultimately I've found Silverlight to be easy to use.

If you learn by doing, maybe try some of the tutorials or video demos, but then just write lots of code. Pick a small application and build it.

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Got dropped into Silverlight project with short deadline :) Then with "trials and errors" mostly.

But my first step after joining project was this page (already mentioned by others): http://silverlight.net/getstarted/ . Good stuff there for starters.

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It took me three full reads of my first PHP book before I understood it. Is this the first time you have come accross the likes of silverlight? If you have experience in other languages you will find it a lot easier.

But, my point is that you should not give up. Keep reading and re-read it all again.

I would recommend that you try and follow a book front to back and then try and follow all of the examples. Then code a simple application and when you have finished it, code another. I have coded something, then realised my implementation was awful and then did it again.. you really do learn a lot this way.

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  • I know that this isn't a PHP example. I was just using it as an example.
    – Layke
    Commented Feb 17, 2010 at 20:11
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I would find a couple of Silverlight Demo apps, and go through the source. Then I would define a very simple project, and as was suggested by others, and code a complete little app. Then I would read the best silverlight book available, that you then would have a much better basis for understanding and remembering. Then I would throw the app away, and do it again with the experience and knowledge you got from the first iteration.

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