4 ms·

A Comprehensive Overview of Windows 8 Metro App Development

52 points by AshFurrow 15y ago

AshFurrow 15y ago
The key takeaway is this: Personally, I'm too entrenched in the Obj-C/iOS ways to develop my own, personal Metro app. But based on what I've seen about Metro, I can see a lot of Enterprise ASP.Net corporate developers going home at night to tinker on their Metro apps, and who can argue against that?
- gary__ 15y ago
  WPF, (the modern way to create .NET windows client UIs) and Silverlight/Windows Phone 7 development is done using XAML at the minute so those developers would have the best head start. Note, it was probably Visual Studio 2011 you saw, 2010 has been out for a while.
  - AshFurrow 15y ago
    Oh, you're right - thanks! I'll correct it.
- icefox 15y ago
  The end of the conclusion really doesn't relate to the article. It starts with "Let's face it: Metro will be a success.", but they he talks about how he has no plans to develop for it.... which is not success in my opinion. Three days of them showing you everything (probably with free food too and access to devs) and it isn't impressive enough for you to make an app what makes you think other devs in mass numbers will develop for it?
  - AshFurrow 15y ago
    Here's the thing: I'm a long-term mac user and a developer for iOS. The training didn't include any XAML training; any interface design was copy-and-paste because writing the XAML wasn't the point of the training. If I was a .Net developer in my day job, I would be writing a Metro app right now.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      The C#/Xaml stuff is for WPF and Silverlight developers. HTML5/JS is the obvious choice for everyone else.
nchuhoai 15y ago
Nice Overview. It seems like Microsoft is actively trying to cope with Apple and I think they are succeeding. A lot of their concepts are well thought. Does anyone have more overviews/guides to the new concepts and technologies introduced in Windows 8?
- AshFurrow 15y ago
  This one is linked to by a commenter at the end of my article: http://blog.nparashuram.com/2011/10/developing-apps-for-windows-8-my.html http://blog.nparashuram.com/2011/10/developing-apps-for-wind...
  - axemclion 15y ago
    Developing with HTML, CSS and JS makes it cooler. This way, more people could simply use what they know and start writing applications. This is no different from writing a web page, but has more capabilities too. Unfortunately, there sure are some issues ... :) - Parashuram
mhd 15y ago
Does anyone know about the future of Visual Studio? The current Express editions are pretty crippled and Pro was pretty expensive the last time I looked. Comparing e.g. a Mac Mini and a Win7+VS bundle, entering iOS/Mac development actually came cheaper.
- DanBC 15y ago
  > Does anyone know about the future of Visual Studio? Driver development is moving into Visual Studio. I guess that's pretty big.
- nhebb 15y ago
  If you join BizSpark [1], you get free MSDN subscription (i.e., Visual Studio and a load of other software). It's a pretty good deal if you're going after the MS stack. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
- kogir 15y ago
  For students there's DreamSpark: https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/
nupark2 15y ago
> Microsoft's Push Notification Service (WNS) is a HTTP-based, which is awesome. Apple introduce a TCP-based approach to push notifications that basically requires you to write a dedicated sever (again, somehow, Apple didn't specify how to do) to send your push notifications through their APNS. No one rolls their own APNS server because it's too hard and there's Urban Airship. This is ostensibly a professional engineer, and this position drives me bonkers ("not HTTP, too hard")! Apple provided protocol documentation and a very, very simple TCP+SSL protocol. Rolling your own client should be a matter of a day or two of work, at the absolute maximum. Apple even provides sample code: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/CommunicatingWIthAPS/CommunicatingWIthAPS.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH101-SW1 http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Networ... The fact that people are frightened of TCP and a simple binary protocol is a mind-boggling indictment of the ineptitude and inexperience of the engineers that have been placed in a position of responsibility. I dealt with a server team recently that refused to consider a push-based feature because it would "cost too much to send that many pushes through Urban Airship". Implementing their own local client for the protocol never occurred to them, and our doing so for them dismissed out of hand ("too complicated").
- untog 15y ago
  But what is the actual advantage? Its all very well saying that it's easy to implement Apple's solution, but HTTP is simpler. What makes it worth having to spend a day or two on a custom solution?
  - nupark2 15y ago
    > But what is the actual advantage? Efficient high throughput performance. That's why Apple went with the protocol they did in the first place. > What makes it worth having to spend a day or two on a custom solution? It's not "custom", it's just a TCP connection. I quoted a day or two as a maximum estimate, assuming someone totally unfamiliar with the space, and possible integration issues with their existing infrastructure. I'd be surprised if Urban Airship was fully integrated any faster, since most of the heavy lifting will be in managing state and creating an internal push API, not in speaking TCP+SSL to Apple. [edit] Here's an implementation in about 20 lines of Python: http://blog.nuclearbunny.org/2009/05/11/connecting-to-apple-push-notification-services-using-python-twisted/ http://blog.nuclearbunny.org/2009/05/11/connecting-to-apple-...
tomjen3 15y ago
Okay he isn't at all fair to XAML. Yes it is XML, but it is also what HTML (which is very, very close to XML, remember?) should have been. A great way to define the user interface and make it easy to dynamically bind to stuff in your source code so that you can easily split code and UI and test all your code. Also the idea was to have something your designer can make beautiful without having to trouble the programmers every time they want to make a simple change. That is why you define animations in XAML and not C#. Don't let your hate for MS lead you to disregard this framework. It really is genuently great.
- AshFurrow 15y ago
  > Don't let your hate for MS lead you to disregard this framework. It really is genuently great. I think I was pretty fair in my treatment of XAML as something I didn't care for but admittedly had no experience in.
  - tomjen3 15y ago
    The trouble is that when you have no experience with it, it tends to be dismissed because it is something you are not familiar with.
  - justncase80 15y ago
    Your assesment seemed fair. You don't have to like everything, you didn't say anything unreasonable.
raijny 15y ago
'Microsoft did a lot to remove crud to create a great developer experience, which is why I'm so frustrated to learn they're keeping support for Visual Basic.' Why does he say that?
Hominem 15y ago
Drops APIs from .Net ? What is dropped?
- justncase80 15y ago
  Synchronous versions of APIs that are now async. Like the HttpRequest object only has async methods instead of both sync and async. Silverlight did this as well.

52 points by AshFurrow 15y ago

The key takeaway is this: Personally, I'm too entrenched in the Obj-C/iOS ways to develop my own, personal Metro app. But based on what I've seen about Metro, I can see a lot of Enterprise ASP.Net corporate developers going home at night to tinker on their Metro apps, and who can argue against that?

gary__ 15y ago
WPF, (the modern way to create .NET windows client UIs) and Silverlight/Windows Phone 7 development is done using XAML at the minute so those developers would have the best head start. Note, it was probably Visual Studio 2011 you saw, 2010 has been out for a while.
- AshFurrow 15y ago
  Oh, you're right - thanks! I'll correct it.
icefox 15y ago
The end of the conclusion really doesn't relate to the article. It starts with "Let's face it: Metro will be a success.", but they he talks about how he has no plans to develop for it.... which is not success in my opinion. Three days of them showing you everything (probably with free food too and access to devs) and it isn't impressive enough for you to make an app what makes you think other devs in mass numbers will develop for it?
- AshFurrow 15y ago
  Here's the thing: I'm a long-term mac user and a developer for iOS. The training didn't include any XAML training; any interface design was copy-and-paste because writing the XAML wasn't the point of the training. If I was a .Net developer in my day job, I would be writing a Metro app right now.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    The C#/Xaml stuff is for WPF and Silverlight developers. HTML5/JS is the obvious choice for everyone else.

nchuhoai 15y ago

Nice Overview. It seems like Microsoft is actively trying to cope with Apple and I think they are succeeding. A lot of their concepts are well thought. Does anyone have more overviews/guides to the new concepts and technologies introduced in Windows 8?

AshFurrow 15y ago
This one is linked to by a commenter at the end of my article: http://blog.nparashuram.com/2011/10/developing-apps-for-windows-8-my.html http://blog.nparashuram.com/2011/10/developing-apps-for-wind...
- axemclion 15y ago
  Developing with HTML, CSS and JS makes it cooler. This way, more people could simply use what they know and start writing applications. This is no different from writing a web page, but has more capabilities too. Unfortunately, there sure are some issues ... :) - Parashuram

mhd 15y ago

Does anyone know about the future of Visual Studio? The current Express editions are pretty crippled and Pro was pretty expensive the last time I looked. Comparing e.g. a Mac Mini and a Win7+VS bundle, entering iOS/Mac development actually came cheaper.

DanBC 15y ago
> Does anyone know about the future of Visual Studio? Driver development is moving into Visual Studio. I guess that's pretty big.
nhebb 15y ago
If you join BizSpark [1], you get free MSDN subscription (i.e., Visual Studio and a load of other software). It's a pretty good deal if you're going after the MS stack. [1] http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/ http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
kogir 15y ago
For students there's DreamSpark: https://www.dreamspark.com/ https://www.dreamspark.com/

nupark2 15y ago

> Microsoft's Push Notification Service (WNS) is a HTTP-based, which is awesome. Apple introduce a TCP-based approach to push notifications that basically requires you to write a dedicated sever (again, somehow, Apple didn't specify how to do) to send your push notifications through their APNS. No one rolls their own APNS server because it's too hard and there's Urban Airship. This is ostensibly a professional engineer, and this position drives me bonkers ("not HTTP, too hard")! Apple provided protocol documentation and a very, very simple TCP+SSL protocol. Rolling your own client should be a matter of a day or two of work, at the absolute maximum. Apple even provides sample code: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/NetworkingInternet/Conceptual/RemoteNotificationsPG/CommunicatingWIthAPS/CommunicatingWIthAPS.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH101-SW1 http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Networ... The fact that people are frightened of TCP and a simple binary protocol is a mind-boggling indictment of the ineptitude and inexperience of the engineers that have been placed in a position of responsibility. I dealt with a server team recently that refused to consider a push-based feature because it would "cost too much to send that many pushes through Urban Airship". Implementing their own local client for the protocol never occurred to them, and our doing so for them dismissed out of hand ("too complicated").

untog 15y ago
But what is the actual advantage? Its all very well saying that it's easy to implement Apple's solution, but HTTP is simpler. What makes it worth having to spend a day or two on a custom solution?
- nupark2 15y ago
  > But what is the actual advantage? Efficient high throughput performance. That's why Apple went with the protocol they did in the first place. > What makes it worth having to spend a day or two on a custom solution? It's not "custom", it's just a TCP connection. I quoted a day or two as a maximum estimate, assuming someone totally unfamiliar with the space, and possible integration issues with their existing infrastructure. I'd be surprised if Urban Airship was fully integrated any faster, since most of the heavy lifting will be in managing state and creating an internal push API, not in speaking TCP+SSL to Apple. [edit] Here's an implementation in about 20 lines of Python: http://blog.nuclearbunny.org/2009/05/11/connecting-to-apple-push-notification-services-using-python-twisted/ http://blog.nuclearbunny.org/2009/05/11/connecting-to-apple-...

tomjen3 15y ago

Okay he isn't at all fair to XAML. Yes it is XML, but it is also what HTML (which is very, very close to XML, remember?) should have been. A great way to define the user interface and make it easy to dynamically bind to stuff in your source code so that you can easily split code and UI and test all your code. Also the idea was to have something your designer can make beautiful without having to trouble the programmers every time they want to make a simple change. That is why you define animations in XAML and not C#. Don't let your hate for MS lead you to disregard this framework. It really is genuently great.

AshFurrow 15y ago
> Don't let your hate for MS lead you to disregard this framework. It really is genuently great. I think I was pretty fair in my treatment of XAML as something I didn't care for but admittedly had no experience in.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  The trouble is that when you have no experience with it, it tends to be dismissed because it is something you are not familiar with.
- justncase80 15y ago
  Your assesment seemed fair. You don't have to like everything, you didn't say anything unreasonable.

raijny 15y ago

'Microsoft did a lot to remove crud to create a great developer experience, which is why I'm so frustrated to learn they're keeping support for Visual Basic.' Why does he say that?

Hominem 15y ago

Drops APIs from .Net ? What is dropped?

justncase80 15y ago
Synchronous versions of APIs that are now async. Like the HttpRequest object only has async methods instead of both sync and async. Silverlight did this as well.