MSNerd

Looks like people are applying some credence to what MSNerd has been saying. 

Windows 8 in October and Apollo on all generations of Windows Phones?

Check out the rumours going round at

 http://www.reddit.com/r/casualiama/comments/r4q5l/iama_someone_who_leaks_information_about/

@Ian2: Twit seems to think Win8 will RTM in July, with a retail release in October. Heard it in Tuesday's Tech News Today.

MS Nerd pretty much confirms what us "haters" have been saying all along. SL is dead (and indirectly WPF). They also seem to draw the line between desktop and WinRT/Metro; sounds like the desktop is dead too. And XNA? Gonna be dead sooner or later. Everything is going WinRT.

Sure you can still develop against all of the dead technologies but you can still also write stuff in VB6.

If this is true they're drawing a pretty hard line with a big bet on everything flipping to W8 and WinRT. No compromise for sure.

@DeathByVisualStudio: Speaking of VB6, WinRT is really sounding like a modern version of the VB6 runtime. I wondered today how Windows would be today if WinRT had come out with Windows XP.

Long term, obviously WinRT is the goal. I believe Microsoft has all but stated that from day one. WinRT is the future replacement of Win32. However, it's going to be some time before that happens, and it's unlikely W8 will even still be a supported OS by that time. IOW, it's not something to be concerned about when making any decisions about what you should do today.

@DeathByVisualStudio:WinRT is really .net pushed down a level to operate native(somewhat) on windows.    As long as I can use C# I dont care about a few Api changes.    Oh,  of course, the non professionals can keep using VB.   I wish Anders could squash them permanently.

2 minutes ago, TexasToast wrote

*snip*

   Oh,  of course, the non professionals can keep using VB.   I wish Anders could squash them permanently.

OUCH!

1 hour ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

MS Nerd pretty much confirms what us "haters" have been saying all along. SL is dead (and indirectly WPF). They also seem to draw the line between desktop and WinRT/Metro; sounds like the desktop is dead too. And XNA? Gonna be dead sooner or later. Everything is going WinRT.

Sure you can still develop against all of the dead technologies but you can still also write stuff in VB6.

If this is true they're drawing a pretty hard line with a big bet on everything flipping to W8 and WinRT. No compromise for sure.

well what about xaml in WIn 8 / Metro ??? 

WPF and silverlight might be "dead"  but if xmal markup still works then wpf lives on with a name change and some plumbing changes ...

IMO Microsoft is limiting WinRT to Metro applications simply because the application stack hasn't been fully built-out yet and it's easier to initially support a very rigid set of specifications before opening things up. They've already admitted that the XAML used by the Metro application stack doesn't support all the fancy databinding of SL and WPF. That's why that can't push the new application stack for LOB desktop applications.

I predict that by the time .NET 5.0 rolls out (i.e. when WinRT will be fully baked), you'll be able to select different WinRT client profiles (for either desktop vs Metro-style applications) for the target framework in your projects. Both types of applications will be running .NET 5.0 on top of WinRT (if you happen to choose C# or VB as your language preference, that is), and both will use a unified version of XAML.

1 hour ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

MS Nerd pretty much confirms what us "haters" have been saying all along. SL is dead (and indirectly WPF).

Silverlight as a runtime will continue to be used in three areas: Xbox 360 apps, Windows Phone 7.x apps, & LoB apps. This is approximately a hybrid of the capabilities of versions 4 & 5 of the Silverlight redistributable. Microsoft will continue to release security, stability, bug-fix & feature-fix updates.

Haters gonna hate...

3 hours ago, Bas wrote

*snip**snip*

Haters gonna hate...

You left out a sentence...

Silverlight as a runtime will continue to be used in three areas: Xbox 360 apps, Windows Phone 7.x apps, & LoB apps. This is approximately a hybrid of the capabilities of versions 4 & 5 of the Silverlight redistributable. Microsoft will continue to release security, stability, bug-fix & feature-fix updates. There is no v6 release planned for Silverlight in the current sense.

...how disingenuous of you.

Sorry folks I'm not one of those "Yeah! Skills transfer! Woohoo!" kind of guys. If I were a selfish a-hole then maybe I could be like that but I actually give more that a rats behind about my customers.

A couple of the issues I have with Microsoft's approach include:

1. WinRT is not backwards compatible with W7. It's W8 or legacy; there's no transition. IMO that's hard for business to swallow (or expensive as even if you take an MVVM approach -- you'd still have a WPF/SL client and a separate WinRT/Metro client).
2. The apparent "F the customer's investment in current technologies (WPF/Silverlight)" attitude. You can talk all you want about how these apps still run in W8 but it does not address the "thousand little cuts" Microsoft has made to the OS to make mouse + keyboard terrible on W8 and the desktop a second class citizen. More importantly it doesn't address customers who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past couple of years investing in W7, SL, and WPF only to be shown that those investments have no future.

And let's not forget the longer Microsoft leaves things in this holding pattern for business the less important of a player they become.

Oh, so you did see that reply then. You just kind of... decided to disregard every part of it that didn't fit your message. Nice!

@DeathByVisualStudio: I'm not sure I see your point.

Even if we got a new version of WPF instead of WinRT, I'm afraid that you would still have to develop and maintain two separate clients: with very few exceptions, "Metrofied" desktop apps are gigantic piles of failure. The converse would be even worse.

This sucks, of course, but it's nothing new: it happened every time the Windows UI underwent a major facelift. Sure, this time they also grafted a few extra limbs and changed the blood type, but this is kind of immaterial at this point.

Well. Taking one small chunk of this microcosm if WinRT helps to promote the equivalent of 'full screen Silverlight apps' (as WinRT apps) then that is a good thing in my book.

This field is in constant change. That doesn't mean you've lost anything in your investment. For consumers, the old stuff still runs. Microsoft has always (and still is) gone much further to maintain compatibility than any other software company. Hell, MFC applications are still being built and run today. I was doing MFC back in the early 90s, about 5 lifetimes ago in this field. So don't give me any of that crap about WPF/SL being obsolete. It's not. It's just no longer new and hot. If you care about being new and hot, you'll be changing tech every year. Sorry, that's the way the entire industry is. But YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIVE ON THAT BLEEDING EDGE. You can write your apps in Silverlight, WPF, WinForms, hell, even MFC, and be confident that Microsoft will continue to support you. I'm beyond sick of hearing about the death of ANYTHING, and the "blah blah, think of the customers and their puppies" is like fingernails on a blackboard. Your customers don't care what you use to develop the app. They may care about the changes in Win8, but that's not relevant to your app. Frankly, though, it's the power users that are usually the ones to * about this stuff, not your typical customer. If you feel that strongly (i.e. you're not going to put an ounce of thought into it, and instead be driven by emotion) than leave the damn platform already. Two years from now when you're making the same damn complaints about whatever platform you moved on to, I hope you realize how stupid you sounded.

13 hours ago, Bas wrote

Oh, so you did see that reply then. You just kind of... decided to disregard every part of it that didn't fit your message. Nice!

What? That SL will still be used in Xbox 360 apps, Windows Phone 7.x apps, & LoB apps? Did you think they were going to pull it or something. Sure it will be there but just like VB6 and now SL/WPF there will be no improvements. Instead Microsoft will "encourage" customers to move to WinRT/Metro by making W8 abysmal for keyboard + mouse desktop users. If Microsoft would make the desktop less of a second class citizen in W8 by making the metro "enhancements" optional and/or improving keyboard + mouse support I would understand but they're not.

1 minute ago, wkempf wrote

I hope you realize how stupid you sounded.

You mean like you're little rant now?

12 hours ago, Blue Ink wrote

@DeathByVisualStudio: I'm not sure I see your point.

Even if we got a new version of WPF instead of WinRT, I'm afraid that you would still have to develop and maintain two separate clients: with very few exceptions, "Metrofied" desktop apps are gigantic piles of failure. The converse would be even worse.

This sucks, of course, but it's nothing new: it happened every time the Windows UI underwent a major facelift. Sure, this time they also grafted a few extra limbs and changed the blood type, but this is kind of immaterial at this point.

My point is they didn't have to make this big chasm between the desktop and the "new Windows". They could have stuck with WPF/SL and extended it to do what WinRT/Metro does today. No convertion, no fuss. It's not like they needed a new runtime to build slick looking full screen metro apps. XAML provided that already (and has the rich binding that WinRT XAML is lacking) But no, because of politics between WinDiv and DevDiv we end up with this nice divided mess.

BTW, I can't find it now but I have seen some renders of a metrofied desktop that actually looked great (unlike the mess that is the next VS). I'm not suggesting a metrofied desktop would give Microsoft the full screen tablet UI they needed but I disagree that metro on the desktop is a mistake. What is a mistake is putting up "Walls not Windows" in the form of these full screen metro apps on desktop PCs. Tied to a clunky keyboard + mouse, not visual discovery interface and you've got nothing but frustrated users.

You are right of course that it is kind of immaterial at this point. I'm just hoping that if enough people make noise about the desktop, keyboard + mouse, etc on W8 that Microsoft will soften the blow.

In the end MSNerd (and the "haters") is right; WPF/SL is dead. Aside from bug fixes you will see no more improvements in those technologies out of Microsoft. Anything wrong with WPF/SL today will stay wrong.

4 minutes ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

You mean like you're little rant now?

Only to you.