I am really excited about the future of web development using Silverlight. Recent enhancements to Microsoft Expression Blend 4 have enabled the use of the MVVM pattern in a straightforward manner using behaviors.

I have posted a sample project that demonstrates an implementation of the MVVM (Model-View-View Model) pattern to create a simple Silverlight File Manager. This pattern allows a programmer to create an application that has absolutely no UI. The programmer only creates a ViewModel and a Model. A designer with no programming ability at all, is then able to start with a blank page and completely create the View (UI) in Microsoft Expression Blend 4 (or higher).

The MVVM pattern in Silverlight allows us to create an application, yet not specify a UI at all. The UI can be created entirely in Blend without writing a single line of code.

Designers can now take charge of a project that has implemented the MVVM pattern, and create new innovative user interfaces that do not have to go through a programmer. We can expect a lot of advances in user interfaces in the coming years, now that we have taken the "shackles" off of the designers.

I posted the article and the source code here:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/silverlight/SilverlightMVVMFileManagr.aspx