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Having finally (almost) finished the article... It looks like in many places, dogma and internal turf wars are behind the decisions. Some things however seem q

Having finally (almost) finished the article... It looks like in many places, dogma and internal turf wars are behind the decisions. Some things however seem quite reasonable, like having one comprehensive API available to both .NET and native applications and scripting languages - but then only Win Store apps can use most of them... sigh Oh, and no threads for you, and all I/O is dogmatically asynchronous. Ryah (of node.js) would be proud. More hilarity: "As is this case with most of WinRT, contracts aren't usable in desktop applications. This means that, for example, a desktop e-mail client such as Outlook can't be used as a share target."

damian2000 14y ago
MS pushes the line that desktop apps shouldn't depend on Windows store apps being installed on the same machine, and vice versa. In other words, there's no official bi-directional communication method between the two. Some further info on this here for those interested: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7465517/how-can-a-metro-app-in-windows-8-communicate-with-a-backend-desktop-app-on-the-s http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7465517/how-can-a-metro-a...
aik 14y ago
>> a desktop e-mail client such as Outlook can't be used as a share target So basically Metro apps can only share with Metro apps? So a Metro Outlook can be shared with.
- aristidb 14y ago
  Yes. Kind of sad, because I think these "contracts" are an awesome idea, and I don't like them being artificially limited like that.
- avolcano 14y ago
  Yep. Not only can you not share to desktop apps, you can't share from desktop apps, though they still have the Charm on the side for it. So you get this wonderful little flyout: http://i.imgur.com/THJHM.png http://i.imgur.com/THJHM.png
  - DeepDuh 14y ago
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  - gmac 14y ago
    Reminds me of what happened when you dragged something to an open application in the taskbar in WinXP (and maybe later versions too). You got a message saying, essentially, "the computer knows what you want to do but refuses to do it for you". It's borderline insultingly user-hostile.
quotemstr 14y ago
> Oh, and no threads for you, and all I/O is dogmatically asynchronous. Not so much. Don't confuse WinRT, an optional helper library, with the system calls you're actually allowed to make inside an app container. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365747%28v=vs.85%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa36... WriteFile is available in Windows Store applications. You have to use CreateFile2 to get a HANDLE, but CF2 can still create synchronous IO handles.
hoov 14y ago
> Oh, and no threads for you, and all I/O is dogmatically asynchronous. All I/O has been asynchronous since Windows NT. Any blocking calls are just the CRT helping you out.

damian2000 14y ago

MS pushes the line that desktop apps shouldn't depend on Windows store apps being installed on the same machine, and vice versa. In other words, there's no official bi-directional communication method between the two. Some further info on this here for those interested: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7465517/how-can-a-metro-app-in-windows-8-communicate-with-a-backend-desktop-app-on-the-s http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7465517/how-can-a-metro-a...

aik 14y ago

>> a desktop e-mail client such as Outlook can't be used as a share target So basically Metro apps can only share with Metro apps? So a Metro Outlook can be shared with.

aristidb 14y ago
Yes. Kind of sad, because I think these "contracts" are an awesome idea, and I don't like them being artificially limited like that.
avolcano 14y ago
Yep. Not only can you not share to desktop apps, you can't share from desktop apps, though they still have the Charm on the side for it. So you get this wonderful little flyout: http://i.imgur.com/THJHM.png http://i.imgur.com/THJHM.png
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  Attention! This Message box has no content. [Cancel] [Ok]
- gmac 14y ago
  Reminds me of what happened when you dragged something to an open application in the taskbar in WinXP (and maybe later versions too). You got a message saying, essentially, "the computer knows what you want to do but refuses to do it for you". It's borderline insultingly user-hostile.

quotemstr 14y ago

> Oh, and no threads for you, and all I/O is dogmatically asynchronous. Not so much. Don't confuse WinRT, an optional helper library, with the system calls you're actually allowed to make inside an app container. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365747%28v=vs.85%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa36... WriteFile is available in Windows Store applications. You have to use CreateFile2 to get a HANDLE, but CF2 can still create synchronous IO handles.

hoov 14y ago

> Oh, and no threads for you, and all I/O is dogmatically asynchronous. All I/O has been asynchronous since Windows NT. Any blocking calls are just the CRT helping you out.