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This is just so cool. I like the way that I didn't have to learn anything new for developing for windows phone. Same language, same environment, same xaml (pretty much), and I can take my apps desktop experience to another device. I'm completing my first win phone app and love the way I can just re-use code and mark-up between the desktop version of the app. 

Oh so sweet

Finally found this interview. And the answer to my left handed question is very good. At the time of my asking I hadn't seen that you could swipe from the left to bring in previous windows. So all in all. Windows 8 is a big Win.

Love the Metro UI since first seeing it on Windows Phone 7. The only problem I have with Windows 8 is that for a whole week I didn't get to think of WP7. Now I constantly think of both, and scenarios to get apps that work together utilizing both platforms.

Joining the side story about WinRT and .NET here. When .NET came out, it covered a lot things that devs had wanted in the 90s. Managed memory, a common type system etc. Anyone from the VB6 and VC++ days would remember that these types didn't talk nice, String in VB, and you don't know what kind of string to use in C++, CString, char*, CHAR* BString etc. 

So many of these things were addressed and a new language came on board. Building web apps wasn't a totally alien experience anymore, objects written in one .NET language could be accessed from another with ease.

.NET however left gaps and I remember reading many suggestions, debates etc. (probably participated in one myself) about all the stuff on platform invoke etc. A common suggestion was that instead of having all this pInvoke stuff, an Object Oriented API would be a welcome addition because you still cannot easily figure out what kind of type to pass when the API wants a pointer. 

So this is pretty much what WinRT is. It covers the gaps that were left by .NET and means that we don't have to write as many, if any, pInvoke statements. That's what I think anyway.

Downloading the video now. Looking forward to this. If there are two things that I'm crazy about these days (for months really), that would be WP7 and oData. To squeeze in a 3rd, Windows 8 is really cool.

4 days ago,LarryLarsen wrote

@Fabulous_Fadz: I just used your question about left handed users on Channel 9 Live. If you missed it live, keep an eye out for my interview with Sam Moreau on WinUI. It should be up in a day here.

Thanks,

Larry

Looked for the video but cannot find it. Could you provide a link to it?

Aha, finally found the Keynote video. Need to watch the whole thing and couldn't watch it on the build site. 

Loved Windows Phone and am blown away by what they did with Windows 8. thumbs up

@LarryLarsen: Thanks. Wasn't watching live, but will be sure to watch the video when it shows up.

My installation is almost complete, and I just thought of something when looking at the video again. For things like the charms, will they appear on the reverse side for left-handed people when they change a setting to say I am left handed. Much like mouse buttons reverse. Not that I'm left handed but I just thought it might be a good idea to have the metro theme optimised for lefties as well.

Way cool!

Brings some much needed improvements to debugging web pages. It was especially difficult to do when looking at code/forms that were written by someone else. Just don't know in which control/webpart etc to find a particular element. I like this.

Haven't hit the download link yet for the bits, but is this only available in VS2011 or can it also be installed as a CTP for use in vs2010 too?