When I first became an MVP in January 2008 there was some questions as to what bucket Silverlight would fit into. After all, it was brand new; the only versions people were using publicly were Silverlight 1 and the Silverlight 1.1 alpha – it would be three more months before Silverlight 2 beta 1 went live, even though the name was changed from 1.1 to 2.0 well before then. At the time, I had access to some early bits through a program and Microsoft, and was just beyond impressed with what I saw coming in Silverlight 2.

The lead at the time wasn’t sure if the competency should be ASP.NET or Client App Development. My strong dislike of html+javascript made me lean away from the asp.net competency. Luckily, we chose correctly and I, and many others, became Client App Dev MVPs with an unofficial focus on Silverlight.

The number of times I have been this excited about a particular software technology is a pretty short list:

• The first time I heard music come from a computer (after school in 7th grade with a C64 in the rather empty computer lab)
• My first time seeing my sprite moving across the screen on a C64 (7th grade in the computer lab during recess. I wish I had saved that graph paper)
• The first time my custom interrupt hooks did something in DOS (on my 286) although I don’t remember what the hook did. :)
• Surface (but at 15k a pop and no way to play with it, that waned)
• When I first had a managed code app running in the browser (Silverlight 1.1 alpha) with graphics and animation (no sprites, though)

There was a pretty big gap there were software development for me just became a bit mundane; it became a job and fell away from my hobbies. Sure, I did a little bit of coding for fun for my web site and for things like Rhino 3d add-ins, but I wasn’t up until 3 every morning pinned to the computer coding away for fun (even if it’s work!). The Silverlight story and my interest in it just keeps getting stronger. It is no exaggeration to say that Silverlight has rekindled my love of software development and UI design.

Back to the MVP story.

Shortly after I was renewed this year, Microsoft introduced a new MVP area and made Silverlight official. Bill Reiss was the first MVP to move to the new Silverlight competency; he’s done a ton of work in Silverlight, especially in the gaming area.

Originally I thought I’d need to wait until January 2010 to move to the new area, but yesterday, I received notification from Justin Angel that I am now a Silverlight MVP!

I’ll miss a little of the breadth that is assumed with Client App Dev competency (after all, it includes WPF, Windows Forms, and in some minds, Surface), but the deeper focus on Silverlight will help me make more of what I do every day.

After all, there’s no C64 MVP so I had to pick another technology that I love :)

Congrats to all the other newly-named Silverlight MVPs, especially Laurent Bugnion, Richard Costall, Page Brooks, Chad Campbell, Jeff Prosise, and Dave Campbell.

I try not to be too much of a fan of a particular technology, but I am of Silverlight. I don’t try to shoehorn everything into Silverlight - I am still a professional software developer after all - but my definition of what technology is suited for is probably a bit broader than most folks’ :)