Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

touchdevelop.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 71 posts

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#51

Post by ygra »

sturadnidge wrote: post #39

Still, I wouldn't say this http://imgur.com/pUlXu is the best way to drive adoption amongst the Microsoft faithful. Yes I know they need to draw the line somewhere, and IE9 (maybe IE anything... haven't tried 10) sucks, but this is quite a departure from the general Windows stance of "backwards compatibility at all costs" (why their hosts file still lives in an 'etc' directory is beyond me, for example). Additionally…

It's a research project, not an actual product MS wants to sell. So how is this different from the dozens or hundreds of bleeding-edge experiments that demand a current version of Chrome/FF to work and refuse to do anything on any other browser?

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#52

Post by tinco »

michalmoskal wrote: post #13

The typical mode of operation is developing apps in TouchDevelop and running them in TouchDevelop, in the browser (or the WP7 app). If you want, you can also export the apps and sell them in the store, but you will need a dev account. TouchDevelop is a research project exploring programming paradigms that are more touch-centric. Think of it as a way of programming your phone or tablet, whatever it may be, on the devi…

Will Microsoft be seriously backing the TouchDevelop project as a commercial effort? (ie. marketing it to developers and cultivating a community?)

I have the feeling TouchDevelop is what a next generation IDE should feel like. Not just with the touch-friendly editor, which is nice, but also how the rest of the IDE is constantly reacting to what is happening in the editor.

Is the web-app a subset of the WP7 project? Will it be possible to define types like the 'Board' type in the demo? Perhaps by linking to javascript(/typescript) libraries? (the library functionality didn't work for me in Chrome so I assume it's just not implemented yet)

Congratulations on creating a truly impressive IDE :)

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#53

Post by kyriakos »

cheeaun wrote: post #11

So I signed in, going to change my username and it says 'nickname is too short' (at least 8 characters). I uploaded my avatar image, it says 'Only proper JPEG files allowed' :(

It's meant to be an experimental app. I'm surprised it does so much already.

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#54

Post by brudgers »

nikolaitillmann wrote: post #28
amima wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They definitely need some js error tracking tool (like qbaka.net) to handle errors. Their main javascript size is 420K!

Thanks for the recommendation. We (I am in the TouchDevelop team) have an excellent crash tracking system in place, and whatever issues you see today might be fixed tomorrow. If you are curious how we build TouchDevelop, you can watch this video from a session at the recent Build conference: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/3-018

Having seen the first announcement of TouchStudio (the previous name for Touchdevelop) on MSDN and installed it on my WP7 phone, I can attest that the development team is constantly improving and updating the project.

My only beef with the WP7 version is that the increases in integration with online content have at times disrupted fluidity by delaying loading of portions of the app.

It is great to see HN finally giving the project some deserved attention. Previous submissions regarding the project have fallen flat.

Thanks and keep up the good work.

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#55

Post by brudgers »

KeyBoardG wrote: post #32
shuw wrote: post #9

To add some context to the title, this isn't a traditional IDE in the browser. It's a kind of experimental touch-centric IDE with it's own semi-visual programming language (your not exactly dragging boxes around, but your not editing text either). I only played with it for 2 minutes, but it's apparent that this is a "research" project. It's not meant as a replacement SDK for whatever is the de facto standard for Win8…

Yep, this started as an app on WP7 from MSR. You could download and share various scripts/apps. The app was a little clunky but neat.

The first version was called "TouchStudio."

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#56

Post by brudgers »

moconnor wrote: post #38

This is very impressive. I got further with this in fifteen minutes on my iPhone lying in bed than an hour last night with the Windows Phone 8 SDK. The APIs seem nicely designed and the interface works surprisingly well on a phone. I haven't seen anything else as likely to democratize programming since Click 'n Play back in the 90s. It would be nice to see some kind of automatic wrapper facility for the full API, eve…

Initially released as a Windows Phone 7 app only, the driving force was to treat mobile as first class computing devices. Think QBASIC for mobile to allow user scripting of the device.

That idea is important because mobile phones are the way in which most of the world can experience owning a computer. Touchdevelop on the phone allows a poor Kenyan to express her potential as a programmer without obtaining a traditional computer.

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#57

Post by seanmcdirmid »

smuckfordshire wrote: post #19
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers want a market (consumers), consumers want content (by developers). A classic chicken-egg feedback loop. Easier to develop apps is just one point that can ease the feedback loop, but its not sufficient...nor is it shockingly necessary (just look at Apple). Disclosure: MSFT employee, just sharing what I've learned about platforms (and what many probably already know).

Learning curve != ease. The niceness of Cocoa Touch is one of the things that keeps me working on Apple's platform.

My point was that barriers don't matter much when you have a healthy market to receive your app. So while we might work on lowering barriers, its all for not if the store is a ghost town. This is very humbling to us PL/tools researchers.

What keeps you working on Apple's platform is the popularity of the app store, if you couldn't get customers; you would leave in a heart beat for a platform that had a healthier market. Look at all the people who learned Objective C...not because it was the best language, but because it was a technical barrier that was necessary to overcome to access a healthy market (and technical barriers are much easier to overcome than market barriers!).

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#58

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

undergroundhero wrote: post #34
twog wrote: post #5

In order for Windows 8 to be a success from an app development standpoint, MSFT needs to make their apps the easiest to develop. Their SDK must be the best. They should have starter projects, and go crazy on supplying developer resources & starter apps. They need to make apples development & submission process look and feel outdated. Windows is and will remain a huge OS with a ton of opportunity, but MSFT needs to do…

I enjoy the aesthetic of Windows 8 and was really excited to start messing around with app development as a new hobby project. The WinRT API, though... it's very bare. Perhaps I was naive thinking the WinRT API would be similar to .NET, but Microsoft could have made it much, much simpler for current .NET developers to start working with WinRT. My biggest gripe is that WinRT seems to be 100% focused on mobile/tablet p…

>They replaced the excellent System.IO namespace with the Windows.Storage namespace, which doesn't give you access to much of the computer's actual storage

For security reasons. You can open a file picker, but you can't just spider directories on the hard disk, because Windows 8 has quite restrictive sandboxing.

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#59

Post by EwanG »

shuw wrote: post #9

To add some context to the title, this isn't a traditional IDE in the browser. It's a kind of experimental touch-centric IDE with it's own semi-visual programming language (your not exactly dragging boxes around, but your not editing text either). I only played with it for 2 minutes, but it's apparent that this is a "research" project. It's not meant as a replacement SDK for whatever is the de facto standard for Win8…

DeFacto Standard is Visual Studio Express (free with basic info). Allows you to develop in any of the Windows 8 UI supported languages, including Javascript. About halfway done with my first game (a visual novel), and I could see where down the line being able to pick up my work wherever I am and whenever I have a few minutes could be very useful. Would love to setup an IDE pointing to Dropbox for assets etc. Of course I am hopeful that the Surface Pro will make this a little more possible as well.

Re: Microsoft releases tool for creating Windows 8 apps in the browser

#60

Post by EwanG »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #58
undergroundhero wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy the aesthetic of Windows 8 and was really excited to start messing around with app development as a new hobby project. The WinRT API, though... it's very bare. Perhaps I was naive thinking the WinRT API would be similar to .NET, but Microsoft could have made it much, much simpler for current .NET developers to start working with WinRT. My biggest gripe is that WinRT seems to be 100% focused on mobile/tablet p…

>They replaced the excellent System.IO namespace with the Windows.Storage namespace, which doesn't give you access to much of the computer's actual storage For security reasons. You can open a file picker, but you can't just spider directories on the hard disk, because Windows 8 has quite restrictive sandboxing.

Although for most purposes you can tell it to just use the "defined" Documents space (effectively user/MyDocuments) which means you shouldn't HAVE to worry about spidering down directories for your save files and such.

Not associated with MS, but currently developing for the Windows Store :-)

Post reply on HN