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Mike held a small roundtable for a number of pressies. He gave a quick rundown of things you all basically already know, so I took the time to ask a few questions which kept you guys in mind. The questions I asked:
The answers to these questions can be found in the true-to-life* transcript after the break. Posted in Development, Microsoft, Windows | 5 Comments » |
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Events to choose from: If you have any people in mind whom you think would provide good insight into a particular subject, feel free to list them as well and I’ll see what I can do. If you’re registered, please leave your ideas as replies to this forum thread. If you’re not registered, feel free to leave suggestions here. (On that note, why not subscribe? We pay out of pocket for these trips; Even a little bit helps!) Posted in !Important, AeroXP, Microsoft | 2 Comments » |
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(This is the first in an ongoing series about PDC 2008) While perusing the PDC 2008 website’s preliminary agenda, I came across two sessions that really caught my attention:
and
After reading these, I could come to only one conclusion: Microsoft is building an unmanaged version of WinFX (at least the WPF and WCF components of it), currently known as .NET Framework 3.0. This isn’t the first we’ve heard of this. Long first revealed a job description back in March that related to a new, native UI framework for Windows 7. The PDC session overview doesn’t add much (outside of the WCF component) to what was revealed there, but it does seem to indicate that this framework hasn’t been cut from Windows 7. A native WinFX excites me for many reasons. One reason is that it opens up the robustness of the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to native developers, most likely with a significant performance gain versus the current managed WPF developers use now. Also, according to the job description, this framework will use a markup language to define user interfaces (Most likely XAML or something extremely similar), which means designers will be able to use their knowledge (and code) across Win32, .NET and Silverlight now. This could speed adoption of all three technologies, which is nice. Perhaps the most exciting things to the average user are the possibilities this offers up to Microsoft for Windows 7 itself. Microsoft jettisoned most of its vision for a graphically rich shell when it reset Longhorn development and realized that building Explorer in .NET and on top of a framework that was still in development was a bad idea. Now that this framework (milcore) is done, Microsoft should be able to harness its power rather easily through this new unmanaged WinFX framework without having to completely rewrite Explorer. In other words, much of the UI goodness from the early Longhorn prototypes could wind up in 7. Here’s hoping, anyway. Posted in Development, Windows | 19 Comments » |
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For those wondering, Mike Nash is (according to his business card) the “Corporate Vice President” for “Windows Product Management.”
We started tossing subtle hints on the site last week to highlight our presence at this year’s PDC in Los Angeles. Now, roughly three weeks before the event kicks off, I’d like to know what you want us to cover the most: which keynotes you want to hear the most, which sessions you would prefer to hear, and which “UnSessions” you’d like to see. If it’s within our bounds (A Sinofsky Interview is out of the question, unfortunately), we can deliver.
by Jason