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Windows 8: .NET Versus HTML5 Metro App Development
An anonymous reader writes "Will Microsoft take advantage of .NET's Java-like CIL and allow .NET code to run on Windows 8, or force developers to switch to HTML5 Metro apps instead for porting apps to Windows 8? This article brings up important insights into both paradigms' advantages and disadvantages, and even correlates the options with Microsoft's past NT-era support of MIPS and PPC, as well as Windows CE's way of supporting embedded architectures."
This guy is a complete moron. First, it's called the CLI, not the CIL. Second, it's called the Windows Runtime or WinRT and it runs .NET apps and HTML5/js apps. This is all quite plain to anyone that has even a tiny understanding of the system. This architecture diagram has been posted for quite some time, and clearly shows C# and VB as well as C/C++ apps running under WinRT/Metro.
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as the article suggests, to port .Net apps to the ARM architecture. Arm-twisting both ways in the Wintel duopoly, first it was the turn of MS, now it's Intel's turn.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
They haven't extended HTML5 enough to stop it being portable yet. How will they lock users in?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Because Microsoft will do the exact opposite.
Will Microsoft allow .Net to run on Windows 8?!??! Are you seriously asking this? The answer is a resounding YES for so many obvious reasons that it seems ridiculous to even respond to this.
Obama wants you to buy Chinese and Muslim made goods
My understanding is that developers can create metro apps using HTML5, C++ or .Net. The latter two use Xaml for the layout. I have written a number of metro apps using the C# + Xaml option. Granted I have only tried them on x86 development machines but I expect that these metro apps will all work on ARM as well.
I've been through a number of cycles of The One True Greatest Solution For All Time a whole bunch of times now.
As The Comedian says, "It's a joke. It's all a joke."
Great, massive, scalable frameworks that we are to write once in, and that's it, it's nothing but code reuse and minor tweaks for as far as the eye can see...until three or four (or two) years goes by and it's all changed and you have to re-write everything all over again...once and for all.
Until the next few years goes by.
Entire graphical e-z layouts with auto code generation. General purpose driver systems. Document data sharing models. Database storage systems with query languages.
It's a joke. It's all a joke. Mother, don't you dare fuckin' forgive them.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This is me, and will be you, eventually when the next latest and greatest damned thing comes to change your life for the eleventyth twelfthtish time.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I seriously, hope, wish, pray, whatever that you are right.
BEcause that means someday we will see the end of XML.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Honestly, I'm not a big fan. Taking what basically amounts to the (current generation) Xbox user interface and applying it to desktops and portable devices just seems like a massive step backwards.
The HTML 5 standard looks good, and brings definitions which have been missing for over a decade, but it's no replacement for a desktop environment and fully-featured applications.
Also, am I the only one who reads Windows RT and thinks 'Windows Re-Tweet'?
Seriously, has this site simply become a cesspool of trolls, view farmers and ad fairies? Once upon a time there were members that could opine in a relevant manner how they used an OS. Now, it's nothing but mindless, jobless, irrelevant whiners. Does anyone here actually possess a job doing actual work that actually improves our world?
The answer is no, so don't bother. The quality of content here is appalling. The opinions are nearly worthless. The hate-meter so high.
This site now feels like the FOX news of wannabe nerds. However, there are no nerds remaining. Nerds come here now to make fun of the proletariat.
If developers come to rely on "extended" HTML5-javascript libraries that are simply layered over proprietary OS's, which in turn are layered over proprietary ARM-based hardware, does this not present the perfect angle for these giant corporate monoliths to corner the market and create more walled gardens or even an oligopoly?
Intel/x-86 is not licensed and didn't allow for walled-garden business models because companies (Microsoft) couldn't extend their EULA's to demand 30% of software company's revenue (like Apple does now). A company could create software that run on x86 hardware and any operating system on it and not have to pay Intel or Microsoft or anyone else 30% of it's revenue.
With ARM-based devices however, EVERYTHING becomes totally proprietary. The ARM-architecture is licensed to many manufacturers that then integrate it to these software platforms that extend the EULA of the hardware to include the ENTIRE platform: ergo a "walled garden". Companies may not deploy software to these "devices" without paying exhorbitant fees to those that hold the license to these devices...unless the user "jailbreaks" the device which is technically illegal.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2012/02/08/is_a_windows_walled_garden_the_plan_for_arm
and
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2012/02/09/microsoft_defends_windows_8_walled_garden_for_arm
Microsoft is just trying to cash-in like Apple in this respect. By not supporting HTML5 in IE to the same extent as WebKit-enabled browsers AND by "extending" HTML5, they are trying to both kill and own the HTML5 standard (much like they did for instance with J++ as a way to water down Java's "write once run everywhere" approach). I think this will fail, because the windows phone will never overtake the Android/Iphone market.
A side-point...AT&T, a while back, made a javascript library available that allows direct access to native functions, BUT a developer/company would have to pay AT&T fees to use it! Isn't that interesting....what you can do in PhoneGap for free, AT&T wants to CHARGE you for. Could it be that at some point, approaches like PhoneGap will be blocked in these walled gardens? http://developer.att.com/developer/tierNpage.jsp?passedItemId=9700232
As ARM-based devices crush x86, will EVERYTHING be a giant walled garden controlled by an oligopoly or even monopoly? Will HTML5 then wither on the vine? HTML5 seems to be counter to the walled garden approach. It doesn't require an app-store, just a browser. Will Apple, Google, and Microsoft ban browsers (like PhoneGap), thus securing their victory overweb applications that are not bound by ARM-based-device EULA's and don't require that you be extorted to the tune of 30% of your revenue? Basically, if you want native access, you must pay 30% of revenue?
I think the smart business move in the long run may be to expect these walled garden monopoly approaches to fail because people don't like to be price gouged and because there WILL eventually be an alternative to ARM-based walled gardens that provide native access to the device. This whole business of "app stores" that allow you to deploy software to a device, but require 30% of your revenue seems to me to be the height of monopolistic business practices, and should probably be challenged more so in court and by regulators.
Yup, just more Microsoft word-spooge onto the faces of the developmentally naive.
Someone left an MSDN magazine lying around in work. It had an article titled something like "Leveraging code re-use via multiparadigmatic metaprogramming lambda expressions". After some head scratching, I eventually figured out that they were talking about implementing macros in C#.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's been around for over 10 years. Seriously, ditch it. It was shit and will stink the place up for the next 10 years the same way VB6 still does.
Intel will not allow MS a free hand... or vagina.
Argo, many of you Raymond in his this exploitation, and the bootom during which I example, if you Confirmed that *BSD corporations
MS is based on Windows monopoly. That MS has been working to maintain with closed software, interfaces and format for whole it's history.
So HTML5, it's open standard. It allow more intelligent applications with browser and any platfrom. Does'nt sound like MS wish?
MS is slowing evolution of HTML by not allowing it in it's IE. Check with html5 test site.
MS will allow HTML5, but only after it is sure there are enough content (videos etc.) tied to Windows. HTML5 does not mandate some open video. Somehow this suits to MS.
cmore 6randiose
.NET has a command-line interface? Maybe I can program that thing with bash...
.NET has a command-line interface?
It's called PowerShell.
emulation would probably be roughly the speed of a Pentium II, not good enough to be useful.
I don't understand. Would emulation be "roughly the speed of a Pentium II", or would it be "not good enough to be useful"? A lot of applications spend most of their time in operating system calls, be they drawing something on the screen, blocking on the network, or blocking on the user. These would run natively. So I don't see how emulation comparable to a Pentium II would be too slow to be useful, especially for "that one app" whose absence keeps the user off the platform entirely (as long as it's not a game).
the average consumer don't know ARM from arm&hammer
AMD's older CPUs were codenamed "Hammer", and now AMD is partnering with ARM.
i have the feeling for a year and a half i'm gonna be wiping this damned thing for 7
Once this UEFI Secure Boot thing ramps up over the coming years, it will no longer be possible to wipe a computer for another operating system. One already can't do so on game consoles without a jailbreak of questionable legality, and one can't do so on the Windows RT tablets because of how Microsoft requires manufacturers to configure UEFI.
WebGL, but good luck finding a browser that supports it.
chrome?
Good luck finding Google Chrome for Windows RT. From this article: "Microsoft says IE will be the only browser choice in devices running Windows RT, the variation of Windows 8 designed for devices running ARM processors."
WebGL
When will Internet Explorer for Windows RT support WebGL or the other APIs that you mentioned?
These guys show real-time 2-D FFT.
How well does that demonstration work in Internet Explorer?
WebGL
From the article you linked: "Microsoft has not announced any plans to support WebGL". So provided I'm not missing anything, one would first have to implement WebGL as a software renderer in JavaScript, much like the other "shims" that add missing DOM features to IE.
"I get the feeling it's a new generation of developers pushing all these things, one that hasn't learnt from the mistakes of the previous generation. All the problems with HTML5 have long be solved, but for some reason the solutions have been ignored, and so the problems are merely being repeated. I get the feeling we've got a decade of really bad software ahead of us. Time will tell I guess."
They fired the previous generation because all their tech skills were "outdated".
Chrome frame.
Is a browser helper object. The Metro version of IE doesn't run browser helper objects.
developers are going to want to target the option that has the most options with the most platforms
For developers of video games, this will be the .NET Compact Framework, which (unlike full .NET) lacks support for DLR languages such as IronPython. XNA, based on .NET CF, is still the only way for a micro-ISV to target a game console, as Sony and Nintendo appear to have declined to extend their developer programs to micro-ISVs. .NET CF is also the only way to target a Lumia phone, which runs Windows Phone 7.
Desktops and Tablets are different and need different platforms.
What's the big difference in practice between a subnotebook and a tablet docked to a keyboard?
it was a big uh-oh to think Joe six pack needed a full blown out computer.
It depends on what you want a device to do. Do you want a device only to view works or also to create works? Tablet operating systems have historically been underpowered for creating, even compared to older desktop operating systems that ran on comparable hardware. Android has started to buck this trend, with developers creating things like AIDE that lets the user even write and test a program on the device.
The problem with the guy is not that he's a moron, but that he's first class bullshitter. He has made it a habit of spreading FUD on topics he didn't understand in order to get hits on his pages (thecoffeedesk, or this new website). I find it sad that slashdot would give a platform to such an ignorant troll.
One of his previous 'famous' article claimed that RoR was dead, because it wasn't PHP.
The guy is a clown, and if he makes a few good points in his articles, it's entirely by luck.
The .NET Micro Framework has already been ported to ARM---as well as BlackFin. Did intel bitch about that? .NET ported over to ARM (or most other architectures) at this point?
It's really up to what Microsoft wants to do. After all, how hard would it be to have the whole
You can always count on Micro$oft on publishing a shiny, groundbreaking(compatibility breaking) technology every 2 years
Fuck Beta
As .NET CF is *a* way for micro-ISVs, it is hardly the *only* way. Nor is it the most popular way.
On Windows Phone 7, what's the other way to make an application that runs with no data connection without using .NET CF? On Xbox 360, what's the other way to get a game published that doesn't A. use .NET CF (the Xbox Live Indie Games route) or B. require leasing a dedicated secure office and "paying one's dues" by developing several commercial titles in PC-friendly genres, which aren't the same as console-friendly genres (the Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, and WiiWare route)?
So if gaming is feeling the heat, how for sure is CF going to stay dominant in that market?
One could just claim that micro-ISVs don't deserve to have their games published. On Xbox 360, sufficiently large corporations are not required to use .NET CF; they have the choice to use native code.
Let's say I'm on a bus.
Which is where I use my 10" laptop. But then the buses where I live aren't standing-room-only like I've heard about the public transit in some cities.
The Tablet is most likely instant on
So is my laptop. Three seconds after I've put it on my lap and opened the lid, it'll have come out of suspend, and I can key in my password and start an application.
However, it's silly to do so when they also put a jack hammer in my cell. Now if there was no jack hammer, oh yeah AIDE would be like salvation on toasted wheat.
I agree that the sort of shoehorning seen in AIDE is not ideal, but sometimes money to buy hardware is the limiting factor. In the widely speculated coming "post-PC" computing paradigm, more and more people will use a tablet as their primary computing device. This means there will often be no jackhammer: not everybody who needs a PC will already immediately have access to a PC, which encourages such shoehorning. A tablet maker's policy about allowing such shoehorning could mean the difference between a high school student with a Transformer who starts using some simple programming tool for her tablet and takes a liking to computer science and a high school student with an iPad who never had the chance to try programming because he had no regular access to a PC and no programming app for his tablet.
Microsoft already does sell a tablet operating system that comes with another browser. It's called Android. And if you don't think Microsoft sells Android, search Google for microsoft android patent license site:slashdot.org.
This isn't true
Yet. You are correct about the Windows 8 generation; I was speculating about what is likely to happen "over the coming years". Microsoft requires manufacturers of PCs and motherboards with the Windows 8 logo to support custom mode and disabling of Secure Boot entirely on x86, which is the exact opposite of its ARM stance. But come Windows 9, when Microsoft will have end-of-lifed Windows Vista and provided a service pack allowing installation of Windows 7 with Secure Boot, I expect Microsoft to ease up on this requirement and allow x86 PCs to be sold that recognize no bootloader other than one that Microsoft approves.
I really hope you get all the help you need, son.