Windows 8 Application Development with HTML5 For Dummies

Introduction

In 2000, I received a phone call. An editor from a book publisher had read my writing about Microsoft .NET Live Services. She would like to know if I could write a chapter on web services for a new VB.NET book.

“Sure,” I said. “How different could it be from VB6, right?”

Well, those of you old enough to remember the .NET revolution will know how ludicrous that statement is. VB.NET changed everything, and I spent four weeks not sleeping as I learned not only a new language and framework, but a new way of thinking about how XML web services are implemented in the Microsoft world.

The book you are holding represents a similar revolution.

This time, the change is in the venerable Win32 stack. WinRT is a new core Windows library, 15 years overdue. It gives the developer unprecedented control over the hardware for which they are coding. It, however, comes at something of a cost.

To code for WinRT and the new Windows 8 desktop apps, you need to think about the user experience like never before. Microsoft has followed in the footsteps of Google and Apple, defining how apps interact with the user, and how a user interacts with apps.

Sure, you can still write the old Forms-style apps. In fact, you can still write a VB6 app and expect it to run on Windows 8. But if you want the app to appear in the Microsoft Store for instant access by a cool billion users, you have to play by the rules.

Fortunately for you, the rules are all in this book.

Who Should Read This Book

Windows ...