Microsoft Struts Out Windows 8, Developer Story at BUILD

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Having promised to shed more light on its developer story for Windows 8 at its BUILD conference, Microsoft gave developers a peek at the direction it is going with the upcoming operating system along with more details about the OS itself.

At an invitation-only pre-conference workshop here, Microsoft showed off a new Developer Preview version of Windows 8 and said developers will be able to create Windows 8 applications using a variety of languages and technologies, including HTML5 and JavaScript, as well as the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), C++, C# and Visual Basic. Windows 8 is the code name for the next major release of Windows.

Speaking at the September 12 workshop, known as “backstage,” Ales Holecek, a Microsoft distinguished engineer working on Windows, said Microsoft’s idea with Windows 8 is to “put XAML, HTML and JavaScript on an equal footing.”

Holecek displayed a diagram depicting the Windows 8 app model featuring what he called Windows Runtime APIs. Above that layer, Holecek listed Metro style apps and desktop apps. Windows 8 introduces a new Metro style user interface that is built for touch. Holecek said Metro style apps can be built using XAML, C, C++, C#, Visual Basic, HTML and JavaScript. However, the desktop apps – which include Internet Explorer apps, Win32 apps and .NET/Silverlight apps – can be built with HTML and JavaScript, C and C++, and C# and Visual Basic, respectively, he said.

Overall, Holecek listed four summarizing points regarding Windows 8. The upcoming OS will:

• Provide new APIs and tools for building Metro apps
• Make it so developers can have rapid and scaleable development of Metro style apps
• Give everybody a choice of tools and languages – including JavaScript, HTML, C#, C++, Visual Basic and XAML – all in Intel x86, Intel x64 and ARM processors
• Provide a very complete and thought out Windows Store

“If you build your app with the tools we showed and you use HTML and JavaScript, it just runs on ARM,” said Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live Division. “What we did is way underneath abstract out the differences between the hardware.”

“The platform takes care of the differences for developers,” said Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows Experience at Microsoft.

Meanwhile, the Windows 8 Developer Preview comes with Visual Studio 11 Express and its coding resources, as well as Microsoft Expression Blend, which is a modern design environment that enables users to drag and drop elements, then move, style and refine them via an interactive design surface.

Meanwhile, a new Windows Dev Center will provide what developers need to start building their apps, including the latest tools, APIs, compilers, debuggers, sample apps and documentation. And the Windows Store will allow developers to distribute their apps everywhere Windows is sold worldwide.

“We re-imagined Windows,” Sinofsky said in his opening keynote at BUILD on Sept. 13. “From the chipset to the user experience, Windows 8 brings a new range of capabilities without compromise.”

Sinofsky said, essentially, Windows 8 makes Windows 7 even better. And noting that Microsoft has sold more than 450 million copies of Windows 7, sad Windows 8 is built upon the foundation of Windows 7, but delivering improvements in performance, security, privacy and system reliability.

Next: Windows 8 Across a Spectrum of Devices >>