Having bothered to learn JavaScript and the intricacies of the DOM, I ask myself why in the world would I write an app that is basically a browser host app, but only targets Windows 8 computers?

It would be like I was in the cup making business, but my cups could only be used to contain peanut butter and jelly flavored vodka. The stuff exists, and it is pleasing to the senses, but it will never represent a large portion of the beverages people consume.

-Josh

The jury is out with Metro, we look to be developing several new WPF client apps in desktop land, as it will be a few years before the people that pay for large software products will consider developing Metro apps.

I hope Microsoft choose something and stick to it for once.

However, if I were to take the whole of your response and try to keep the ball moving, I might respond back with some statement regarding the universality of the web as a platform and its suitability as a base runtime for applications large and small. Or, I might not.

-Josh

Nope. That is all I can give you. The more I talk, the more you are going to get confused anyway. And I am not sure about your post to begin with, hence, the half assed reply that doesn't really answer your concern.

Every version of Windows sold big, even Vista the terrible, even Me the blue-screener. Regardless of what we think of it, Windows 8 is going to be a huge platform, huge enough that comparing it to some fancy flavored vodka is not the correct simile IMO. Try coffee... yes, you can drink it in nondescript paper cups, but there's a huge market for ceramic mugs.

4 days ago, JoshRoss wrote

It would make more sense for me to develop Windows 8 apps, if it were a PhoneGap target. I've spend a good part of the last ten years developing desktop LOB apps.

Having bothered to learn JavaScript and the intricacies of the DOM, I ask myself why in the world would I write an app that is basically a browser host app, but only targets Windows 8 computers?

It would be like I was in the cup making business, but my cups could only be used to contain peanut butter and jelly flavored vodka. The stuff exists, and it is pleasing to the senses, but it will never represent a large portion of the beverages people consume.

-Josh

In fact, HTML5 WinRT apps are not hosted in a browser control. HTML5 is a first class WinRT projection (so, you build Windows Store Apps with HTML5, not as web pages that run in a WebView control, but as code that directly targets WinRT). There's a big difference. Further, this means you can naturally interoperate with .NET and C/C++ code running on WinRT, too. Now, you don't get to put DX shaders on Canvas elements like you can with XAML UI surfaces, but you can use a DX component that, say, does creative things to images by just passing an image to it from JavaScript (most likely as a path to the file or a JavaScript byte array).

Your last point is purely speculative. It's also a weak argument.  Windows 8 is currently at the beginning of it's marketplace adoption cycle and therefore doesn't match the current levels of usage of more established general purpose operating systems (which have been in market much longer). Asserting that this alone means it will never be successful is illogical. Even Spock would question this.

C 

1 hour ago, Charles wrote

In fact, HTML5 WinRT apps are not hosted in a browser control. 

That's true, but that doesn't detract from the fact that HTML5/JS WinRT apps are parsed and managed by mshtml which is owned and managed by the Internet Explorer team.

The only difference (from a developer's perspective) is that basic objects that were there in the browser but no longer relevant are no longer there (e.g. window.status), and objects are now exposed to your javascript to interact directly with Windows.

In many ways, the whole WinRT/JS think it's just a blending of the power of WScript (with better libraries) and the swishy GUIness of HTML5, all running in a sandbox.

C

• I can write a webpage and light it up with standard javascript and it will run on almost any device running almost every operating system.
• On almost any version of Windows, I can run Chrome and pass in the --app flag and it will run the site as if it were its own application. It removes things like the address bar and most of the other bits that someone would expect a browser should have.
• For every large program, there are many more smaller programs that don't need their critical-path written in hand-tuned C++ for them to perform their job well.
• Any vendor can interpret whatever flags they want into their browser. Including loading splash screens, application icons, etc. Progressive enhancement is a fundamental idea behind many of todays web based user facing frameworks, like jQueryMoble.
• Microsoft changes their application framework strategies more often than many people change their underpants. odbc, dao, ole db, ado, ado.net, linq-to-sql, entity framework, anyone?

-Josh

11 minutes ago, magicalclick wrote

@JoshRoss: I could use JavaScript to open up a new browser with no buttons in it. At least that's the old folks did it with ads. I am not sure what you mean by using a flag to enable an app space. Because from the look of it, metro apps are run at higher security privilege than internet browser with access to many Windows API.

Which Windows APIs do you miss not having on your websites? Anything you can do with File IO, I can do with cloud storage, any of WinRT/JS's high-res graphics and JS objects can be done with SL/Flash/HTML5/jQuery/WebGL.

Pretty much the only thing I can think of that WinRT/JS gives you that a website doesn't is a permanant prescence on your customer's home screen via a live tile.

The reason you would do this (write a Windows Store app in HTML5) is to leverage your already-existing HTML5 skills to build Windows Store applications (which by definition means, again, you have the full WinRT API at your disposal). The fact that the underlying application execution environment is sandboxed doesn't mean it's the same thing as a web browser. It's not.

HTML5 is a set of programming tools used for building applications for the web, as we all know...

Windows 8 enables the use of HTML5 for building "native" client (WinRT) applications for the Windows Store, as we all know...

C

-Josh

Things like C++ AMP look totally awesome, and if I was creating a compute intensive app, I would have it in my pipeline, somewhere. Search and Sharing... The jury is still out on these ideas.

But anyone developing software should write their base app to target a web browser, if they then want to progressively enhance enhance it with native bells and whistles, then great. And this is where Microsoft could shine.  Offer a better browser that runs on everything, and awesome tools that target it.

The Web Essentials 2012 that Mads is working on is completely awesome, and all the work with the Web API is superb. We just need more things of this quality baked into Windows itself.

-Josh

Very nice. I didn't read the whole thing, but it seems like you can even mix PhoneGap and WinJS in the same project.

C

I agree and it's worth saying that PhoneGap lets you do things you can't do in the browser. It's not simply giving you a browser without chrome, but access to the devices hardware and storage capabilities, also stuff like arbitrary networking support (sockets) can be done. It's kind of like the middle between web development and full native development.

It's a lot like WinRT/WinJS in this manner, although what I've read about it (admittedly, not much), WinRT provides an entirely different rendering API using a different XML-based markup language while PhoneGap uses HTML5 and just fills in the gaps in the JavaScript API to allow for more kinds of apps. So it's like a thin layer of capabilities on top of normal web stuff.

54 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

@Bass: The Windows 8 runtime is technically the better choice, almost universally so. But, it is not and will not ever be as ubiquitous as the competition.

23 hours ago, Charles wrote

So, you're also a fortune teller, Josh? Good to know... Can you tell me if I'll be living in Hana in 5 years?

C

Every couple of years there is a new version of Windows. If Windows 8 were to get 51% of the market share, of all web browsing capable devices, it wouldn't be long before Windows 9 comes out. I guess I should never say never. But, it seems as improbable as anything else.

-Josh