“When Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 8 a week ago, the reaction from most circles was positive,” Peter Bright reports for Ars Technica.
MacDailyNews Note: Our reaction from June 1st is here: More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video)
Bright continues, “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,” Bright reports. “Having new APIs isn’t itself a concern—there’s simply never been anything like this on Windows before, so obviously the existing Windows APIs won’t do the job—but 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 application—a weather application—and says, specifically, that the application uses ‘our new developer platform, which is, uhh, it’s based on HTML5 and JavaScript.'”
Bright reports, “Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth… Such a switch means discarding two decades of knowledge and expertise of Windows development—and countless hours spent learning Microsoft’s latest-and-greatest technology—and 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… The longer the company remains silent, the more convinced people will be that the reason that Microsoft isn’t debunking the claims is because there’s nothing to debunk: HTML5 and JavaScript really could be the whole story when it comes to immersive applications. If it isn’t, the decision to say nothing is incomprehensible. Saying nothing can only hurt. Developers are losing faith in the platform today; waiting to September to set them straight is madness.
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Windows is what people who don’t know any better – or who are forced by the resident IT doofus – struggle to use. Developers should be even more concerned that time and the young users have passed by Microsoft and Windows. Smart people develop for the future, not the past; they write software for OS X and iOS.
What is of most concern with this revelation is Microsoft’s leap, once again, into using insecure programming methods. What is JavaScript if not the bane of Internet security. In part, this mess of code is particularly dangerous because of Microsoft having broken from the original Netscape version through the perpetration of their own insecure mess they unimaginatively call “JScript”.
That what we still call JavaScript is being allowed, if not mandatory, in Windows 8 “immersive” applications will no doubt lead to an entire new wave of Windows malware. I’d be laughing if it wasn’t so predictably Microsoft. 😛
One thing people need to remember is this is exactly the same stunt that Apple tried to pull shortly after announcing iOS. Originally, iOS app dev was only supposed to only be HTML5/Ajax/JS – and only run in Mobile Safari(!) Only after the enormous developer outcry did Apple backpedal and offer a real set of API’s + dev tools. I expect that Microsoft will eventually do the same. The problem for MS is they’re already 3 years behind Apple… and the clock keeps ticking.
I’m dismissing this as an overreaction to a non-issue with no basis in fact.
So what if one Windows 8 weather widget was written with HTML5 and JavaScript? That’s perfectly reasonable choice of technology for this kind of program. It’s foolish to conclude from this scrap of information that all Windows 8 applications are going to be HTML and Javascript only. Even on the web, these technologies are typically only used for front end presentation and logic, while most application logic and database interaction are done in more flexible or higher performance languages. There’s no logical reason Microsoft would force developers to do everything in HTML and JavaScript, and no evidence they have made such a restriction.
So Microsoft want to further open up Windows to insecure development code, IOW JavaScript. ARE THEY SERIOUS?! MS dunderheads never learn.
Watch for a whole new wave of Windows malware. I’d be laughing if it was so totally and predictably Microsoft.
Oops! Apologies for the double post. My first post doesn’t show up in the comments using the new MDN iPhone app. (cough cough).
MS is just moving on that the OS will be support on all devices with the same user interface. The PC will still support legacy and will not change for some time to come with good reason where legacy apps build on Win32 API need to exists which is most by the way.
So they have WinRT which meant to support ARM processors as well. So what? This doesn’t mean that you still cannot build not Metro (HTML5/JS/DX11) apps for WIndows 8 on the PC at all. It only means that it will not be supported on a non PC device.
And as for as .Net for all you c#/vb.net programmer out there, you can still use .net which will .net 4.5 for Metro apps which a dx11 wrapper (you got SharpDX).
MS is not actually moving backward but forward making also backward compatibility possible on the PC as well for older code as far back as XP SP3 which does mean direct x 9 support provided you install the drivers required for dx 9.
Therefor whatever language you program in, continue to do so. MS is not about to loose out on Win8 not supporting Win32 API development which most current app for Windows are build on. They would be plain ridiculous and unwise. No, rather they support it still raking money of it even for Win8.
So we got to spend some time going back to tags and (OMG) js (which I will admit I always had a distaste for preferring PHP or C# code-behind [asp]). If you already are a web developer then this is piece of cake and you should have really no issues at all outside some learning curves.
Do what app development that you do still and stop worrying to much.