If you haven’t had heard of Eclipse4SL (Eclipse for Silverlight), that’s an open source extension for Eclipse for Microsoft Silverlight development.
“The purpose of this project [Eclipse4SL] is the creation of open source tools integrated with the Eclipse development platform that enable Java developers to use the Eclipse platform to create applications that run on the Microsoft Silverlight runtime platform. Specifically, the project will be an Eclipse plug-in that works with the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) to provide both a Silverlight development environment and greater interoperability between Silverlight and Java, to facilitate the integration of Silverlight-based applications into Java-based web sites and services. The project has been submitted to the Eclipse Foundation and released as an open Eclipse project.”
What I like about Silverlight is the great performance the technology brings to browser based RIA applications – including support for non-Windows clients like Safari. With Silverlight 3.0 there’s another competitor in the market for RIAs running on the desktop, competing with technologies like Adobe AIR.
Eclipse4SL is developed by Soyatek, with financial and technical support from Microsoft. Right now Eclipse4SL includes support for a complete project management including new project wizard, project import and resource management. The project structure keeps compatible with Microsoft Visual Studio and Expression Blend. More info on the future roadmap of Eclipse4SL can be found here.
