I know I am a Microsoft fanboy, and I am the first to admit it. But I still want to say that I can listen to other peoples arguments and try to look at the facts objectively. I tend to see benefits in a lot of Microsoft things, but that doesn’t mean that I believe that everything else sucks.
I have used a Windows Phone device since before they were even released, built a couple of apps for it and talked about it for different audiences. And it is not a big secret that I like it, especially since I got Mango on my phone.
Having that said, I still believe that there are 2 very good alternatives available. The iPhone is, whatever kind of fanboy you are, a great phone. No, I don’t like a lot of things when it comes to Apple, and I don’t like being stuck with iTunes, and I don’t like Apple’s censorship. But it still is a freaking awesome phone, and pretty much single handedly managed to change the smartphone market into what it is today, which is SO much better than it was with Windows Mobile.
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A question I keep running into when I speak about XAML-based application developer is how the developer/designer workflow should work. I don’t know if the question is common in general, or if it is because people feel that I’m not only passionate about coding, but also about design.
I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about how this workflow should work when working with XAML. In other technologies, I believe that the flow is much harder to get going, and I believe it requires more steps. In the “XAML world”, it should be a lot easier. The separation between functionality and design is pretty clear. And this separation should enable quite a well working flow.
Before I get into how I see it, I want to add a disclaimer… I have not been able to try this out in the real world as much as I would have liked. Mainly because I, in most cases, play all the roles. Or at least manage everything from XAML to code, with visuals coming from a designer.
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28. September 2011
ZeroKoll
Azure , WCF
For the last year, there have been few things in the development space I have heard as much about, as I have heard about Windows Azure. Microsoft has been pushing the Azure platform hard, we all know that, but not all of us have had the chance to try it out though.
Luckily I have had the fortune of being on a few projects that have been using it, but to be honest, I haven’t been really blown away yet. Yes…it does offer some awesome features that work extremely well in certain scenarios, but I would still claim that it isn’t for everyone. Having that said, I admit that I have only scratched the surface of the platform…
Lately however, more or less every time I hear Azure, it comes bundled with the term Service Bus. Either in “this would be such a great scenario for the service bus”, or in “wonder if we can get the service bus in there so that we can try it out”. Ok…so one of these are ok, the other isn’t to be honest… Playing with the service bus isn’t hard, as I will show you in future posts, and thus does not need to be added to a project to be tried. But before I start coding, I want to have a little rant about what it is. Or at least a rant about how I have understood it…
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I feel that the one thing that has been lacking here at Build is information about the fact that “old” windows application technologies are still there in Windows 8, and are just as much first class citizens as the new Metro style apps. They even have a lot on offer that the new apps don’t.
Microsoft promises that any application that runs on Windows 7 will also run on Windows 8. They are also saying, repeatedly but not loud enough, that the “old” technologies are still a very viable option for developing apps. You should not necessarily default to building a Metro style app when creating a new application. To be honest, in my world at least, I am very likely to lean towards another technology when starting a new project.
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Earlier today, I made an update to a previous post, cause I had misunderstood some things regarding WinRT. It is however getting clearer and clearer as we get more and more information.
This post is a way for me to try to explain the Windows 8 developer story as I see it today. I am probably wrong in a hundred different ways, as I am trying to stitch together lots of little pieces of information to get a bigger picture… But I am at least going to try to get what I believe down on paper, and also add my own reflections of course…
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15. September 2011
ZeroKoll
BUILD , Personal
Ok, so Build is onto it’s second day. A second day that has been a lot “slower” than day one. The keynote contained a lot of different information, mostly focused around connected apps and Windows Server 8, which I assume was to be expected.
The keynote did contain some gems though…
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Ok, that was day one of Build Windows…and I am left very impressed! I had high hopes, but to be honest I guess I still had low expectations for today, but I can honestly say I was blown away. I know I am a Microsoft fanboy, and that I like most of the things Microsoft comes up with, but people who know me also know that still trash a bunch of their things as I find them lacking. But this really seems very good!
There has been so ridiculously much information coming out today that I don’t even know where to start. The keynote had a bunch of interesting points, but the following sessions were just packed with awesome stuff.
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13. September 2011
ZeroKoll
BUILD , Personal
Holy f@#%&! That’s all I can say… Microsoft just pulled the biggest rabbit out of the hat ever! My expectations, as well as the rest of the attendees were high, but I really do feel that they managed to live up to those expectations and then some!
Everyone I have spoken to over lunch have been impressed and just want to get their hands on a Win8 device ASAP. It will change the way we work with Windows to an extent that I think few can fathom at the moment. But I think the companies that produce touch panels will be the ones who gain most from this new OS.
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13. September 2011
ZeroKoll
BUILD , Personal
At the moment, I am sitting at the back of a jam-packed room waiting for the Build keynote to begin. The room has 6 massive displays counting down the time to the start of the keynote…13:23 left…
It sounds severely geeky, but you can really feel the anticipation I the air! I am SOOOO happy that I am not doing the keynote. But hopefully they have something good enough to wow the crowd! Otherwise I would consider going on stage a suicide mission. People would rip MSFT a new one. So my expectations are high!
However, we have still not heard anything about anything! All we know so far is that the whole day is in the same MASSIVE room and the “sessions” are all called “Big Picture”.
My guess for the day…? Well, I would expect a ridiculous amount of talk about multiple connected device, and cloud based services. And the word of the day will most likely be “end-user experience”, which I think is really good. As long as Microsoft doesn’t try to copy Apple too much… It’s a fine line…
Well, time to listen to what they have to say!
PS: Sorry for having made several posts with no information at all… But it just shows you what the situation is here!
I really tried not to write this post. A lot of other Silverlight devs have already written it so I shouldn't, but I have had enough… I have finally got asked about the death of Silverlight so many times that is has pushed me over the edge…
Silverlight isn’t dead… It isn’t dying… It isn’t about to be killed…
How do I know this? Well, except for some of the information I am hearing from Microsoft about it, it doesn’t make sense… It makes no sense at all!
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