Microsoft BUILD conference

Haircut · 13 Sep 2011 at 08:26

Anyone else interested in seeing what's going to happen here?

http://www.buildwindows.com/

I'm a developer currently doing lots of C#/WPF, so am obviously interested in hearing what's going to happen with Windows development when Windows 8 comes along.
Obviously there's going to be quite a bit about HTML5 in there, but from a lot of the rumours MS could be shifting focus from managed languages and back to C++ in the form of WinC++.

Whatever happens I suspect there will be new skills to learn for Windows development in the future.

Mr-White · 13 Sep 2011 at 08:58

Me I'm interested as i'm following the progress of W8

MW

helium · 15 Sep 2011 at 22:29

I'm here right now, it is really awesome. Microsoft certainly know how to throw a party. +free win 8 tablets for all, with VS2011.

Whatever your language there are some really cool new features and enhancements available. I believe all the conferences are available to download/watch from the link above. So anyone interested in the future of windows should check them out.

Windows 8 is still pre beta but hte build thats on the tablet works really well. I'm starting to become a fan of the UI. CAnt wait to get home and install the iso and have a play.

Haircut · 16 Sep 2011 at 07:25

I have to say I'm not 100% convinced on the whole concept of Windows 8 so far. It looks pretty slick (considering it's still just a developer preview) but I just can't see that the Metro stuff fits in at all with a standard desktop.
It looks great for tablets, but seems so focused around touch that I can't really see it being of use outside of the tablet arena and will just serve to annoy.
I've got the ISO downloaded and will have a play soon though, so may well change my mind.

From a development point of view I'm intrigued with what they've done with WinRT though.
Seems that even though they're clearly pushing HTML/CSS to do Metro user interfaces, the fact that XAML is now a fully fledged part of the Windows Runtime suggests that it's not going anywhere for a while yet.

The async stuff in the C# CTP (and now in .NET 4.5 dev preview) makes a lot of sense when you see the WinRT async API, which is cool.

BTW, a nice overview of WinRT from Miguel de Icaza here:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Sep-15.html