1. Whats Next for.NET Developers An introduction toWindows 8 Windows Runtime Metro.NET 4.5 C# 5 Visual Studio 11 Ivan Towlson, Mindscape

2. Windows Evolution 1.0 Real mode Rudimentary shell 3.0 386 mode Graphical shell 95 32-bit Virtual memory Pre-emptive multitasking Explorer shell (Start) NT 4 NT XP Unified enterprise and consumer platforms

3. Windows Today Dominant operating system on traditional PCs User experience tailored to keyboard-mouse- monitor setup Technology largely tied to x86/x64, boot from disk Fundamentals of user experience largely unchanged since Windows 95

4. Market Challenges Shifting away from traditional PCs towards consumer devices – Smartphones – Fondleslab tablets – Media devices (audio/video, portable/home entertainment) – Game consoles Microsoft needs to compete in these markets

5. Design Challenges – Traditional Desktop Users need to be able to manage: – Very large number of installed applications – Lots of notifications (e.g. social media) – dont want to have to keep opening lots of applications to check or catch up on different things Sharing silo-ed data (in apps and services) – Most of My Pictures may be on Facebook! Application distribution

6. Design Challenges – Devices Start menu is fiddly to navigate with touch Window management is fiddly, and in most cases is useless overhead Battery life needs to be better Boot time needs to be near instant Buying an app needs to be low friction Keep multiple devices (including a PC) in sync It needs to look awesome (and harmonious)

7. Introducing Windows 8 A new shell A new set of UI standards A new application model A new set of APIs – Rich visual design – Asynchrony everywhere – Multiple language support ARM support and diskless boot support A new set of cloud services

8. Introducing Visual Studio 11 Compiler support for Windows Runtime Designer support for Metro Language changes for C#, F# and Visual Basic – C# and VB: async – F#: type providers

9. Introducing the Windows 8 Drinking Game Fast and fluid – CHUG Re-imagining – DOWN IN ONE DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME AT TECHED IT WILL KILL YOU

10. Windows Runtime A common runtime for Windows applications providing a safe, object-oriented API to a variety of services, accessible from multiple languages Cripes! That sounds familiar!

11. WinRT Architecture Internally based on COM, but looks like.NET Sandboxed Language projections Component-based – Metadata format (.winmd) is very similar to.NET Can also be used from native code (C++) Windows 8 only

12. Diagram credit: Doug Seven

13. WinRT Class Library Mostly a subset of the.NET basic profile – Not the full profile! – Roughly comparable to Silverlight (plus classes for Win8 and local machine features) – C#/VB still target 4.5 CLR, but compiler restricts you to APIs in the Metro profile (a la Client Profile) Some.NET features unavailable or moved – Language projections take care of some changes – Many things now in Windows.* namespaces

14. WinRT Class Library Potentially long-running APIs (e.g. file, network) are only available in async form – E.g. no HttpClient.Get, only HttpClient.BeginGet – C# and VB await keyword works with WinRT IAsyncOperation as well as CLR tasks

16. WinRT Application Model XAML-based user interface – Very similar to Silverlight – Styles and templates – Data binding

17. WinRT Application Model Capabilities specified in manifest – Services the application wants to consume – E.g. location, camera Declarations specified in manifest – Services the application offers – E.g. file type association, search provider Contracts which applications can consume or implement (e.g. search, share, picker)

18. WinRT Application Model OS suspends application when not active – Notifications via live tile Non-Metro apps run on Desktop as before – The desktop is effectively just a (special) app!

19. .NET 4.5 Updates to the.NET 4.0 CLR – Not side-by-side Windows 8 support – Framework does not require Windows 8 though New versions of C#, VB and F# Many enhancements to high-level libraries – ASP.NET, WPF, WCF, WF, MEF, ADO.NET

20. http://www.heikniemi.net/hardcoded/2011/10/whats-new-in-net-framework-4-5-poster/

21. .NET 4.5 Class Library – Selected Highlights BCL: async APIs using Task objects ASP.NET: HTML5 forms, model binders in Web Forms, minification, AntiXSS, lots more! ADO.NET: Entity Framework enhancements WPF: ribbon control, async validation, multithreaded collection updates, perf! WCF: Web Sockets, simplification! WF: state machines, C# expressions, versioning enhancements, designer

22. Languages C# 5 Visual Basic… er… lost count… 11? Visual C++ 11 F# 3

23. C# and Visual Basic Async Long running operations present a dilemma Synchronous: – Pro: Clear top-to-bottom program flow – Con: Locks up UI (and blocks other operations) Asynchronous: – Pro: Fast and fluid (CHUG!) – Con: Splits program flow, especially if you have a sequence of async operations Solution: use F#

24. C# and Visual Basic Async async method modifier means method might not complete synchronously Within an async method, use await keyword to call an asynchronous method and wait for its completion without blocking In an async method, you can write your code in a top-to-bottom way and the compiler will transform it into callback style

25. F# 3.0 We doan need no steenkin async – Because weve had that stuff and more for ages – Wake me up when C# has async agents LINQ operators – Okay, I admit it, that one, C# got there first Type providers

26. Visual C++ 11 C++/CLI-like syntax that compiles to native (COM) code targeting WinRT – WinRT constructs like lists mapped to C++ STL Lots of other C++1x goodness including lambdas which is outside the scope of this talk – see Herb Sutters Build sessions for details

27. Building Great Metro-Style Applications Metro style design Fast and fluid (CHUG!) Snap and scale beautifully Use the right Contracts Invest in a great Tile Feel connected and alive Roam to the cloud Embrace Metro principles

28. Metro Style Design The silhouette of a Metro style app – Standard layouts, type sizes, etc. (as in VS templates) – harmonious across applications Content before chrome The edge Comfort and touch – how people hold devices

29. Metro Style Design – Silhouette

31. Metro Style Design – Content Before Chrome

33. Metro Style Design – The Edge Left and right edges are for system UI Top and bottom edges are for application UI

34. Metro Style Design – Comfort and Touch

35. Building Great Metro-Style Applications Metro style design Fast and fluid Snap and scale beautifully Use the right Contracts Invest in a great Tile Feel connected and alive Roam to the cloud Embrace Metro principles

36. Live Tiles Windows.UI.Notifications defines the available tile templates – E.g. plain text, text above picture, etc. Live tiles can show application data while application is not running – E.g. unread message count, stock ticker – Your back end service sends notifications to Windows Push Notification Service (WNS) – WNS notifies the Windows 8 client

37. Building Great Metro-Style Applications Metro style design Fast and fluid Snap and scale beautifully Use the right Contracts Invest in a great Tile Feel connected and alive Roam to the cloud Embrace Metro principles

38. Learn More Watch the videos from the Build conference – Jensen Harris (Big Picture) – Chris Sells (Big Picture) – Anders Hejlsberg (C#/VB) Follow the Building Windows 8 blog – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/ Download the developer preview – Install to VHD – Hanselman has instructions – VS11 preview for non-Metro will install on Win7

39. Thanks! Windows 8 – http://www.buildwindows.com/ – http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/ Me – http://hestia.typepad.com/flatlander/ – http://www.mindscapehq.com/ – ivan@hestia.cc – ivan@mindscape.co.nz