ScottGu posted over the weekend about Silverlight 2, and even though I will be away from the web scene for awhile while working on my current project, I am still excited. There are links to 8 Silverlight 2 tutorials.  Key features include:

• WPF UI Framework: This is a compatible subset of the WinForms WPF framework. You should be able to re-use controls written in Silverlight 2.0 in your WPF projects. Some WPF controls may not be compatible, and hopefully control creators will try to target both frameworks.
• Rich Controls: TextBox, CheckBox, RadioButton, StackPanel, Grid, Panel, Slider, ScrollViewer, Calendar, DatePicker, DataGrid, ListBox were listed in Scott's post.
• Rich Networking Support: Out of the box support for REST, WS*/SOAP, PX, RSS and HTTP. You can access resources on the web, and there is also built in support for sockets.
• Rich Base Class Library: A compatible subset of the base class library including collections, IO, generics, threading, globalization, XML as well as LINQ and LINQ to XML.

Now the question is, what ever happened with Silverlight on the Compact Framework? If you remember from Mix 07, during the MLB demo, the presenter showed off a "Silverlight" application running on a Smart Phone (see this blog post for some details). Is it any coincidence that this Silverlight 2 announcement happens only weeks before Mix 08 and painfully leaves out any compact framework details? Scott uses the phrase compatible subset in two places when describing the features of Silverlight 2.0. Compatible Subset is an interesting choice of words, as you could describe the Compact Framework in that way as well. Should I really be getting this excited in thinking that Silverlight 2 will be released for the Compact Framework when we having even seen a 1.x build that runs on it?

Yes. Maybe I'll be disappointed, but I will be keeping a very, very close eye on the Mix 08 conference. Larry has a great post up entitled 5 things to do if you are not going to MIX. If you are stuck in the middle of a frozen wasteland like Larry and I (well maybe not wasteland, but compared to Vegas, the upper Midwest leaves something to be desired right now), or can't attend MIX for any reason, I suggest you read up on how to make the most of MIX as a "virtual" attendee. So set your outlook calendar to out of office for Mach 5-7th.