As the Microsoft developer world turns: Guidance for the perplexed

Microsoft is in the midst of launching a host of new operating systems and tools this summer/fall. So what's a developer to choose to build apps and services for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Windows Server 2012 and/or Windows Azure?

There are familiar, legacy .NET tools and frameworks available, like Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation. There are newer and less familiar (to many Microsoft developers) options including XAML and HTML5/JavaScript. And on the server side, there's ASP.Net for building server-based Web applications.

Microsoft tools vendor Telerik has delivered a new version of its Platform Guidance document that aims to help developers sort through the myriad choices, based on the type of application they are developing. The eight-page Platform Guidance PDF is a free download, available as of September 18.

The document doesn't advocate abandonning tried but true platforms like Silverlight, even though Microsoft seems to be trying to wean developers from that platform by downplaying it and declining to comment on its future, beyond committing to support Silverlight 5 through 2021. (Ditto with WinForms, which Telerik notes isn't the best choice for "greenfield" development, but which still has its place.)

Here's the Cliff Notes version of what the Telerik principals are recommending for development of each type of app:

Desktop Applications – WPF
Dashboard/Reporting Applications – ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) with HTML5
Data-Driven Websites – ASP.NET MVC and Web API
Interactive Web Applications (Forms over Data) – ASP.NET WebForms
Mobile Website – ASP.NET MVC HTML5
Tablet Applications – XAML and .NET

The Platform Guidance document includes a chart to help developers evaluate whether XAML or HTML is a better choice for building a Metro-Style -- now know officially as "Windows Store" -- application:

At only eight pages, the Guidance document isn't meant to be a be-all/end-all work. But it's a starting point, which offers some much-needed suggestions for those attempting to navigate the rapidly changing Microsoft development waters.

The company's technology allows any Web page to go live in real-time

Obviously, the main advantage of new media companies that utilize the Web—like Groupon, Yelp, or even our own VatorNews—over old media companies that stick to paper and phones is the speed at which they can operate.  In the time it takes your local newspaper to report on an event that happened at 5 pm the previous day, your friendly neighborhood blog has already turned the situation inside-out with up-to-the-minute updates.

The power of “now” on the Web can’t be overestimated, which is why anything happening in real-time is an eye-catcher.  One real-time technology provider, aptly named Realtime, relaunched Tuesday with $100 million in funding from BRZTech, a São Paulo-based investment vehicle backed by a number of private investors in Europe and South America.

Founded in 1997 as Internet Business Technologies, the company has rebranded as Realtime and claims to have developed a technology that will pave the way to the new “live Web.”

To break it down, Realtime has created a platform that allows users—whether they’re businesses, advertisers, or developers—to add a single line of code to a Web page to push data to a single user or multiple users without requiring them to refresh the page.  The technology is powered by Realtime’s extensive Realtime multiplatform language (xRTML), which can be implemented for both Web and mobile apps, including NODE.JS, Javascript, ASP.net, PHP, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.
But the lynchpin is its versatility.  Realtime Web is multi-browser, multi-device, multi-protocol and multiplatform, so businesses and developers can get it up and running simply by adding the code, rather than opening up a can of programming worms.

And its uses are equally versatile.  Realtime Web can be utilized to allow Web users to change website content as it comes out, vote and see other users votes in real-time, or simply get customer service help as they need it.  The technology can also fundamentally change display advertising by allowing ads to be replaced while they’re being displayed depending on exposure time and a user’s information.

Realtime’s own website shows you how it works, with a box of statistics that is being continually updated to show how many developers are using it (1,114), how many user connections it’s seeing (123 million every 24 hours), and even how many visitors are checking out the site right now.

“Many people have talked about the coming ‘real-time Web’ in very abstract terms, and Realtime is the first company building a tangible framework that will make that abstraction a reality. We did not create a product. We created an industry,” said CEO and founder André Parreira, in a statement. “We are committing the resources to make Realtime the fluid, next-generation, truly conversational standard for the Web across the world.”

With offices in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, London, Madrid, Lisbon, and now Santa Monica and New York, Realtime is securing partnerships in the U.S. and already has over 2,000 partnerships around the world.
Realtime was recently classified as a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner (as IBT).

“[Realtime] has the potential to set a new industry standard for real-time Web experiences that feel more like you’re in a giant chat room than the static, often frustrating quest for information we are often subjected to today,” Gartner reported.

Napa: new programming model for Office 15

As part of its recent announcement of the new version of Office, Microsoft has introduced a new programming model for developing add-ins that combines web technologies and cloud services. The new model is designed to work with future versions of the Office productivity suite and with the SharePoint portal technology. The "Office 365 Development Tools" – code-named "Napa" – currently have "public preview" status and include a model for developing hosted apps that can, Microsoft says, be operated via SharePoint, Windows Azure and custom web servers. Developers will be able to market their apps and add-ins through the new Microsoft Store, as well as through their own companies' app catalogues.

Napa is available as a free development environment for SharePoint and is also referred to as the "online companion to Visual Studio", Microsoft's IDE. As it integrates into a browser, no further desktop installations appear to be required and developers can work directly in the browser. Supported formats include HTML, client-side ASP.NET (ASPX), CSS and JavaScript. Switching to the forthcoming Visual Studio 2012 is only required for more ambitious scenarios. Microsoft says that existing Office and SharePoint extension models such as VBA, COM, VSTO and SharePoint Solutions will work in parallel with Napa, although these models are unlikely to be available to install via the online store.

To start experimenting with Napa, developers must register for the Office 365 Developer Preview. This allows them to access a dedicated developer site with an instance of Office 365 that can be used as a basis for writing, installing and testing apps; developers can then use Napa as described in detail in Microsoft's documentation. An introduction to Napa with screenshots is also available in a blog post by Jason Zander, Corporate VP for the Visual Studio Team in Microsoft's Developer Division. Developers can keep up-to-date with future developments by following the company's new "Apps for Office and SharePoint Blog".

Telerik Adds Tablet Support to Kendo UI HTML5, JavaScript Tool

Telerik announced that its Kendo UI framework for building HTML5 and JavaScript mobile apps and sites now supports both tablet app development and server-side ASP.NET MVC development.

Telerik, a maker of application development software, has announced a major update of its Kendo UI, a unified framework for building HTML5 and JavaScript mobile apps and sites.

This release includes a set of controls and widgets for creating rich iPad user interfaces, as well as the first in a series of server-side wrappers to enable developers to incorporate and configure Kendo UI via familiar server-side programming.

On July 11, Telerik announced Kendo UI Complete, a collection of Web, DataViz and management tools for professional software developers.

In an attempt to avoid fragmentation, more developers are focusing on Web standards such as HTML5 and JavaScript to build software that can run anywhere and reach the largest possible audience. Kendo UI’s unified framework incorporates adaptive rendering capabilities and leverages the latest in CSS3, HTML5 and JavaScript Web standards to automatically adapt a mobile app’s native look-and-feel on any smartphone and tablet device, while delivering broad support for all major browsers.

“With this release, Kendo UI moves beyond mobile phones to help developers create experiences with HTML5 that look native on the iPad and other tablets,” Todd Anglin, vice president of HTML5 Web and Mobile Tools at Telerik, said in a statement. “In addition, we’ve added important updates across the Kendo UI framework, including the first in a series of server-side wrappers that further equip developers to quickly and cost effectively create advanced apps and mobile sites with HTML5 and JavaScript.”

According to IDC, more than 107 million tablets will ship this year, with nearly two-thirds of those expected to be iPads. By adding iPad-specific widgets to Kendo UI Mobile, the company provides developers with a streamlined way to build native-like apps leveraging HTML5 for the market’s No. 1 tablet.

HTML5 is quickly becoming the dominant cross-platform runtime, with ABI Research forecasting the installed base for mobile devices with HTML5 to grow from approximately 500 million in 2011, to more than 2.1 billion in 2016. Gartner further forecasts that worldwide tablet sales will grow by 98 percent in 2012 to 119 million units.

Kendo UI Mobile already helps developers build HTML5 or JavaScript apps that automatically transform to the native look-and-feel of iOS, Android and BlackBerry. With this update, developers can use Kendo Mobile UI’s adaptive rendering to target multiple phone and tablet platforms with a single UI code base, thus eliminating the traditional challenges that developers face of manually researching and then combining all the plug-ins and frameworks and libraries needed to build mobile apps.

This new release also adds server-side helpers for ASP.NET MVC, enabling developers to incorporate and configure Kendo UI via familiar server-side programming, while still producing apps that benefit from the client-side power of Kendo UI and HTML5. While Kendo UI works with any server-side technology, some developers are less comfortable in JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), but feel very capable when working inside a server-side language. These wrappers ensure that developers who prefer to build apps from their own server-side language can do so quickly.

Moreover, developers using the new ASP.NET MVC wrappers can take full advantage of server-side framework features and coding conveniences, while targeting both desktop and mobile devices using the cross-platform power of modern HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Kendo UI Complete for ASP.NET MVC is the first of what the company plans to be a collection of server-side helpers for different platforms, including Java and PHP, all designed to maximize developer productivity with HTML5.

In addition to the new iPad widgets and server wrappers, there are updates across the entire Kendo UI framework, including new and improved widgets and charts in Kendo UI Web and DataViz, enabling the presentation of rich, touch-aware visual information on any browser and any device.

There are new Popover and Split View controls, as well as Action Sheet and Modal View widgets for Kendo UI Mobile. Telerik added new Donut (or torus) and Bubble chart types, as well as date axis support and additional arrow types for the Radial Gauge in Kendo UI DataViz. And the company added a combined DateTimePicker widget, column reordering and resizing on the Grid, and support for hierarchical and relational data in the DataSource for Kendo UI Web.

New course of Global Knowledge teaches HTML 5 to Students

Global Knowledge, worldwide leader in IT and business training, today announced the availability of a new Microsoft course, HTML5 Programming (M10953). Students in the three-day course will learn to use HTML5, and they will gain the knowledge and skills needed to develop HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript web applications using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

Students will learn to use HTML5 to create a web application within the Visual Studio 2010 SP1 integrated development environment. They will use new HTML5 semantic and structural elements, and they will create web forms using the validation capabilities of the input types and attributes in HTML5.

Using advanced CSS and CSS3, students will create layouts and styles, and they will integrate graphics and multimedia into web pages using Canvas, SVG, video, and audio elements. They will work with the HTML5 Web Storage API and advanced HTML5 JavaScript APIs, including drag-and-drop, File, and Geolocation APIs. Students will also create a web site using WebMatrix and ASP.NET MVC 3.

HTML5 Programming (M10953) is available in classrooms, live over the Internet in a virtual classroom, and as a private on-site course that can be tailored to the needs of a student's organization. Learn more about the new HTML5 course and explore the extensive catalog of Microsoft training available from Global Knowledge at www.globalknowledge.com.