Now, Why Does the Debugger Keep Getting Detached?

I'm still crazy in love with the promise of Silverlight and so excited to be able to work in it.  So please take that statement and keep it in mind while I rant.

I'm able to participate in the development of a rather ambitious silverlight application.  One which is teaching me a lot about how to optimize my time, how to find what's really broken, and how to keep the dang debugger attached.

It seems that the .xap file is cached by the browser.  This is doubly complicated if you've got a Silverlight application that uses a separate .dll for business logic.  Changing the Business Logic .dll will not "register" with the environment to send a new xap.  Either that, or Internet Explorer doesn't think it should have to download a new .xap file to the client for whatever reason. 

You know you've got an old copy of the .xap in your cache if your debugging breakpoints are disabled when the control is loaded in the browser.  So although this is easily fixed (CLEAR YOUR TEMPORARY FILES)  It took me literally DAYS to figure it out.  Heck, I tried everything.  Close Visual Studio, ReBoot My Computer, Search the Internet for answers.  So Heartbreaking when you're on a fixed timeline.

Tools/Internet Options/Delete/Delete Files/YES/Close/OK

That's my new routine, I'm going to actually add it as a post build action for my silverlight project.  Whenever it gets compiled, it will clear the temporary files before launching the debugger when I F5.

On September 9, 2008, I've got a session on Search Engine Optimization for Silverlight Web Applications at the Minnesota Developer's Conference.  There, I'll be giving examples of how to code your web apps to keep our web OPEN.   This talk will be lots of code and little background, so bring your Inner Geek and be ready to let her out.