Goodbye, VS Express...

[dilettante]

Basically it is like they took the Windows Sidebar concept, expanded it to its own "desktop" layer that rides above the traditional Shell32 Desktop, ripped the Start Menu out of the Shell32 Desktop and moved some of its functionality into the Metro desktop.


Instead of Sidebar Gadgets based on existing HTML and script technologies you now have "Metro Applets" that can run as a "live tile" or else full-screen. These are touch-centric and instead of using existing HTML & script they have a new OS layer they call Windows Runtime (WinRT) that implements some new APIs you can (mostly) only use from Metro. If your screen has a high-enough number of horizontal pixels there is a way for two metro applets to live "side by side" on-screen but that's it.


Part of what's in WinRT is a native code implementation of XAML for use by C++ or .Net programs written against the WinRT environment, and a new HTML5 engine and a new JavaScript engine based on WinRT allowing script-based development too. The latter two items are also used in the Metro "personality" of IE - basically there are two IEs in Win8. .Net XAML was so dog-slow, blurry, etc. they had little choice but to replace it. As a side note this was what detoured XP's replacement for so long - they tried to use .Net for OS functions but it was too fat to fly!

One of the main ideas here was to follow a "phone like" model where applets can get fired up but normally never terminated by the user. They're supposed to be written to be "put to sleep" and even killed by the OS when it feels cramped instead, and must retrieve and restore their state when awoken or restarted. Applications are also supposed to be written to maximize resource use by using async operations wherever possible... and to encourage that the WinRT exposes a bare minimum of sync operations and nothing akin to the incredibly evil DoEvents.


As time progresses a lot of this sort of info a programmer might want or need is beginning to disappear in favor of user-centric marketing fluff. Better get to those BUILD conference webcasts, Channel9 presentations, etc. before they disappear or become very hard to track down!

This is starting to remind me of the people here who ignored the tons of info Microsoft put out during the Vista betas. They now come here and have to ask hundreds of fragmented questions one by one (and over and over again) about stuff they are expected to know.

The "what's new in Windows 8 for developers" parade has already marched by, turned the corner, and can barely be heard in the distance at this late date.