The only real tool for developing cross-platform rich Internet applications (RIAs) for that last 11 years has been Flash; until now! Silverlight 3 allows you to develop cross-platform rich Internet applications in a fraction of the time because of the extensive and very powerful .NET 3.5 libraries, the powerful, design friendly Blend 3 IDE, and an enhanced workflow that allows designers and developers to work on the same set of files at the same time. Develop stunning RIAs in a short time. Learn some basic object-oriented programming principles. Get familiar with the Blend 3 development environment.