Why Microsoft has made developers horrified about coding for Windows 8 Excerpt:
When Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 8 a week ago, the reaction from most circles was positive. The new Windows 8 user interface looks clean, attractive, and thoughtful, and in a first for a Microsoft desktop operating system, it's finger friendly. But one aspect of the demonstration has the legions of Windows developers deeply concerned, and with good reason: they were told that all their experience, all their knowledge, and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8. Key to the new Windows 8 look and feel, and instrumental to Microsoft's bid to make Windows a viable tablet operating system, are new-style full-screen "immersive" applications. Windows 8 will include new APIs for developing these applications, and here is where the problem lies. Having new APIs isn't itself a concernthere's simply never been anything like this on Windows before, so obviously the existing Windows APIs won't do the jobbut what has many troubled is the way that Microsoft has said these APIs will be used. Three minutes and forty five seconds into this video, Microsoft Vice President Julie Larson-Green, in charge of the Windows Experience, briefly describes a new immersive applicationa weather applicationand says, specifically, that the application uses "our new developer platform, which is, uhh, it's based on HTML5 and JavaScript." Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Windows developers have invested a lot of time, effort, and money into the platform. Over the years, they've learned Win32, COM, MFC, ATL, Visual Basic 6, .NET, WinForms, Silverlight, WPF. All of these technologies were, at one time or another, instrumental in creating desktop applications on Windows. With the exception of Visual Basic 6, all of them are still more or less supported on Windows today, and none of them can do it all; all except Visual Basic 6 and WinForms have a role to play in modern Windows development. Hearing that Windows 8 would use HTML5 and JavaScript for its new immersive applications was, therefore, more than a little disturbing to Windows developers. Such a switch means discarding two decades of knowledge and expertise of Windows developmentand countless hours spent learning Microsoft's latest-and-greatest technologyand perhaps just as importantly, it means discarding rich, capable frameworks and the powerful, enormously popular Visual Studio development environment, in favor of a far more primitive, rudimentary system with substantially inferior tools. Read more here: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/06/html5-centric-windows-8-leaves-microsoft-developers-horrified.ars J - It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first. - Ronald Reagan Government has no other end, but the preservation of property. - John L ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:338851 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
