I came across a problem when using Visual Web Developer 2008 to develop for Silverlight. When adding an xmlns for your application to your UserControl, the compiler complains about a missing assembly reference.
<UserControl
x:Class="SilverlightApplication1.Page"
xmlns:My="clr-namespace:SilverlightApplication1"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Width="400" Height="300">
<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Black">
<Canvas x:Name="surface">
<My:Foo x:Name="bar" Canvas.Left="305" Canvas.Top="220"/>
</Canvas>
</Grid>
</UserControl>
You can fix this by removing the My:Foo element and building the project before adding the element back in.