Build Keynote Odds 'N Ends -- Visual Studio Magazine

Onward and UpwardKeith Ward, Editor in Chief, Visual Studio Magazine

Build Keynote Odds 'N Ends

Anaheim, Calif. -- Here are some interesting tidbits that came out of this morning's Build keynote presentation that caught my attention.

I was very impressed by Windows 8's limited resource usability. One demo had a three-year-old netbook loaded with both Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8. According to Task Manager, Windows 7 used 404 MB RAM and 32 processes; Windows 8 used 281 MB RAM and 29 processes. Microsoft has learned that bigger isn't always better.
The boot times for Windows 8 are staggering. The OS loaded in under 10 seconds on both a laptop and tablet. Wowzer.
As with all demos, take these numbers with a grain of salt. They'll likely be highly optimized, to make people like me go "oooh" and "aaahhh". Which I did.
I really liked Metro's ability to dock apps at the side of the UI. My iPhone and iPad can't do that type of multitasking. Would love it if they could.
One company is holding a "Recruitment Party" tomorrow night at the show. Unemployment may be more than 9 percent nationally, but not for developers.
Not much talk of Silverlight. At all. Hope there's more coming. It wasn't ignored completely, but not highlighted either. It looks like it'll be easy to port it to Windows 8 -- one demo showed a Silverlight app being converted to Windows 8 with the addition of something like 20 lines of code -- but from what I saw, they didn't announce much to move it forward as a technology. That may change over the week, though, so stay tuned.
XAML will be easy to convert as well. According to the speaker during the demo, "It's mostly namespace changes" and different "using" statements. Really easy -- at least for the demoed apps. Again, see the previous point about optimized demos.
Once again, I point out with no bitterness, journalists ARE NOT eligible for the free tablet giveaway. Oh, well, guess I'll have to struggle through with my iPad 2.

More Windows 8/Build coverage from VisualStudioMagazine.com:

Posted by Keith Ward on 09/13/2011

comments powered by Disqus

Featured

Mastering Blazor Authentication and Authorization

At the Visual Studio Live! @ Microsoft HQ developer conference set for August, Rockford Lhotka will explain the ins and outs of authentication across Blazor Server, WebAssembly, and .NET MAUI Hybrid apps, and show how to use identity and claims to customize application behavior through fine-grained authorization.
Linear Support Vector Regression from Scratch Using C# with Evolutionary Training

Dr. James McCaffrey from Microsoft Research presents a complete end-to-end demonstration of the linear support vector regression (linear SVR) technique, where the goal is to predict a single numeric value. A linear SVR model uses an unusual error/loss function and cannot be trained using standard simple techniques, and so evolutionary optimization training is used.
Low-Code Report Says AI Will Enhance, Not Replace DIY Dev Tools

Along with replacing software developers and possibly killing humanity, advanced AI is seen by many as a death knell for the do-it-yourself, low-code/no-code tooling industry, but a new report belies that notion.
Vibe Coding with Latest Visual Studio Preview

Microsoft's latest Visual Studio preview facilitates "vibe coding," where developers mainly use GitHub Copilot AI to do all the programming in accordance with spoken or typed instructions.
Steve Sanderson Previews AI App Dev: Small Models, Agents and a Blazor Voice Assistant

Blazor creator Steve Sanderson presented a keynote at the recent NDC London 2025 conference where he previewed the future of .NET application development with smaller AI models and autonomous agents, along with showcasing a new Blazor voice assistant project demonstrating cutting-edge functionality.