This post is the first of a series of articles and samples targeting Microsoft’s newest mobile OS, Windows Phone 7 (WP7).

Read on to learn about:

• the development platform
• the development frameworks
• designing for Windows Phone 7
• getting up to speed quickly

The development platform

The development platform was launched on March 15th during the MIX 10 event at Las Vegas, and the tools have been updated once already. They will without doubt be updated at a regular pace until the final version is released. According to Microsoft, these final tools should be available months before the phones are launched during holidays 2010.

Best of all: these tools are free. Here is a quick look at what is available:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone: the famous IDE with limited features when you compare it to the professional version of Visual Studio 2010, but very capable for most basic and even advanced scenarios. From experience, one would rarely require Visual Studio 2010 Pro’s specific features for developing a phone app. One of the biggest downsides of the Express version: you cannot install VS add-ins (bye bye Resharper, VisualSVN, ankhsvn, TestDriven.Net, NDepend…)

• Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Emulator: runs your applications without a device. Right now, extremely few people outside of Microsoft have access to preview devices. From experience, while the emulator is very helpful, it is not a perfect substitute to thorough tests on a device for matters such as UI (touch target size, font readability …) and performance.

• Microsoft Expression Blend 4 RC with Phone add-ins: a tool used to design user interfaces. It is the essential tool used for the designer/developer workflow. Some posts will be dedicated to it, especially because developers tend to overlook it and more generally several of its features are not very well-known. Visual Studio 2010’s interface designer is a poor substitute to what Blend can do.

Note that the tools are all easily installed with one setup. If you already have Visual Studio 2010, it will install the necessary add-ins to enable WP7 development. Right now, Blend 4 is not part of the install package, however Microsoft hinted at a version specific to WP7 and completely free. They may then be included in the global setup.

They can also be uninstalled very easily if you choose the correct entry in the uninstall window (do not try to uninstall single components independently), for example when updating to a CTP refresh.

Developing for Windows Phone 7

Two frameworks are currently available for development:

• Silverlight
• XNA 4.0

This series of posts will focus on Silverlight development exclusively, XNA being dedicated to games development.

The WP7 version of Silverlight is based on desktop/RIA version 3, but also contains some v4 features as well. Silverlight is now a mature technology with a good set of features, well -defined processes and great tools: you will need to understand two languages to be productive in Silverlight, C# and XAML. C# being the “real” code used to run the application. XAML being an XML file declaring the visual parts of the application. The two can interact in various ways, and we will go through the notions of code-behind and data-binding.

Prior knowledge of C# is a requirement. You should build up your knowledge of C# with some books and tutorials before starting development for WP7. This series of posts will require some basic knowledge of the language.

Designing for Windows Phone 7

Designing for Windows Phone 7 does not require prior knowledge of any Microsoft product. However, it is very likely that you will pick-up the correct notions quickly if you know Adobe Flash/Flex.

Adventurous designers will also take a peek at the XAML code generated for them by their tool, Expression Blend.

Please note that these blog posts target the developer audience first, but you might find interesting nuggets as a designer, especially if you want to learn more about what’s under the hood.

Getting up to speed

Getting up to speed should be fairly easy given the size and the quality of the Silverlight community as well as the many resources available on the web:

• Getting started guide for Windows Phone 7
• Programming Guide for Windows Phone 7
• Developer Training Kit
• Free preview of Charles Petzold’s next book dedicated to Windows Phone 7

Here’s hoping the posting rate of the series will be regular. Since we are new to blogging this type of information, we welcome any suggestion or comment. This series will benefit from being driven by the reader’s interest.