On Windows 8

Wired: “They were told that all their experience, all their knowledge and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8.”

I think there’s been a lot of undue FUD surrounding the little demo of the new Windows 8 shell Microsoft released. I saw the demo and my first reaction was, “Hey, they’re learning from their mobile experience.” Then I instantly thought, “Wait, is this a shell on top of a shell? Is this Microsoft Bob all over again? Reminds me of Active Desktop.” Yes, those thoughts crossed my mind. I hope this isn’t a shell on top of a shell. I hope they find a way, like Apple, to meld it into the desktop experience. I can’t imagine it would be a shell on a shell. That just doesn’t make a lick of sense and would be confusing to users. I say Microsoft will do the right thing and make it work for both novices and experts alike, it will be a part of the shell. Steven Sinofsky is a smart guy.

The other thing I call BS on is developers believing Microsoft is going to abandon .Net or FORCE them to create applications in HTML. Do you think Visio, Word, Excel, or even Visual Studio will be rewritten in HTML? I think not. I’ve heard Microsoft is making a push back into C and C++. Bravo. Embrace the computer I say. In the last 10 years Microsoft has made great strides on .Net, I can’t see them abandoning that. It’s basically a development path for the masses as well as a way for Professional Developers to accelerate time to market. Microsoft has always been very good about maintaining backward compatibility. I don’t think developers should worry too much.

I’d reserve judgement of Windows 8 until we see Release Candidate bits. If the new shell is still a shell within a shell, then I’d worry a bit.