Impressions From Build Conference

Today was the first day of the Build Conference in Anaheim.
I wanted to type my notes before going to bed.
First of all, I am typing this blog post on my brand new Windows 8 tablet. No MS Word on it, so forgive all the typos.
The day started with key note. You can watch it on www.buildwindows.com
I thought all the demos were quite impressive. Windows 8 is totally following the footsteps or windows phone 7, fully embracing Metro design principles. Not really a surprise that I liked that a lot, since I really like my windows phone. A variety of devices were on the stage, stressing the fact that windows 8 will run on all of them, including tablets. The same coded base on all them, The same apps will run on all the devices then, right?
Coding experience included C++, C#, VB.NET, JavaScript/HTML, XAML. No, not Silverlight, just XAML. Seems very similar to Silverlight to me. All of these approaches rely on new runtime, WinRT. All the apps use this new run time to utilize features in Windows 8. Unlike .NET, this run time is part of Windows, optimized for performance. Visual studio is the tool that will be used to build applications that use this run time. It comes with a number of project templates that make it easy to write applications that fit naturally into Metro style. This includes look and feel, but also animations and styles.
I am not quite clear what happens to .NET in this brave new world.
We will just have to wait and see.

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