InfoQ Homepage .NET Content on InfoQ
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Visual Studio 11 Preview is Now Available
The Visual Studio 11 preview is now available for MSDN subscribers with a general release planned in the next few days. Here is a brief summary of the features they are showing off at Build.
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C# and Visual Basic on the WinRT API
While Win32 APIs can be called from .NET languages, doing so can be quite difficult. So for the last two year Microsoft has been building a replacement known as Windows Runtime or WinRT with cross-language support in mind. WinRT components can be created in both C++ and .NET and may be consumed by both of those as well as JavaScript.
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Microsoft has Abandoned Silverlight and All Other Plugins in Metro IE
Though it has been hard, we have been trying to avoid reporting on rumors about the death of Silverlight for quite some time. As in all things, rumors tend to be exaggerated or out-right false. Unfortunately the end of Silverlight is no rumor; if Microsoft doesn’t change course it, as well as Flash and other plugin technologies, will be effectively unusable when Windows 8 is released.
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Build Sessions to Watch For
With 274 sessions at the //Build/ conference it is hard to predict which are going to be important and which are just filler. Here is a rundown of the sessions we think are going to be important to enterprise developers.
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WinRT: An Object Orientated Replacement for Win32
WinRT is a modern OS-level API that is built upon the Windows kernel. It isn’t just a layer on top of Win32, it is a replacement for it. Built with Object Orientated concepts such as a unified type systems and reflection, it is equally usable from C++, .NET, and dynamic languages such as JavaScript.
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Major UI Themes in Windows 8
Windows 8 Metro doesn’t just change the way applications look, it fundamentally changes how they behave. Applications will no longer be running in the background at all times, they will be suspended whenever they are not view. Rather than a save button, most applications will be constantly updating data on the cloud so that the user can seamlessly switch from one device to the next.
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Windows 8 Replaces the Win32 API
Windows 8 introduces a new core API called WinRT. This is used to develop Metro style applications using C/C++, .NET, or JavaScript. These applications automatically gain features such as hardware acceleration and advanced power management out of the box. Existing Silverlight and WPF applications can be ported to the new “Native XAML” libraries with minimal effort.
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Spring AMQP 1.0 GA
SpringSource, a division of VMware, has released Spring AMQP 1.0 GA (1.0.0.RELEASE). The Spring AMQP project applies core Spring concepts to the development of AMQP-based messaging solutions, and is available in both Java and .NET versions.
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Windows Azure Toolkits for Devices Now Include Android
In addition to updates to the Windows Azure Toolkits for Windows Phone and iOS, Microsoft has introduced a new toolkit for Android, which can be used with applications developed with the Android SDK and Eclipse.
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.NET Developers Now Can Access Google Discovery APIs
Google has released in open source form the .NET APIs Client Library which can be used to access services providing discoverable APIs such as Books, Analytics, Latitude, Prediction, Tasks, Translate and others.
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Does Anybody Listen? - Podcasts related to Architecture Topics
Keeping up to date on software architecture is difficult, because only a few information sources cover this important area explicitly. Of course, Online Services like InfoQ offer a lot of information on software architecture and design. But what about learning in your spare time,for instance when you are commuting or during your running exercise? Can audio podcasts provide an appropriate solution?
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Silverlight 5 RC: Microsoft Reinforces Their Commitment with Many New Features
Microsoft has announced Silverlight 5 RC ahead of the BUILD conference, making sure the are no more questions about their commitment regarding their favorite browser plug-in technology. Silverlight 5 has many new features, including: 2D and 3D graphics rendered via the GPU, remote video control, P/Invoke support, in-browser trusted applications, better performance and tools.
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SQL Server Bids Farewell to OLE DB After Denali
Denali will be the final edition of SQL Server to support OLE DB, because Microsoft considers ODBC to be the industry standard for relational data access.
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Resources for Windows Phone Developers
In what’s becoming a tradition, Microsoft has once again confused the version numbers of one of their key products. In brief what you need to target Windows Phone 7.5 is the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK and the August 2011 build of the Windows Phone Toolkit. Or you can give the PhoneGap beta a spin.
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Visual Studio vNext Code Editor Improvements for C++
Sumit Kumar on the VC++ team has revealed some of the new IDE features for the next version of Visual Studio. While some of them are merely catching up to VB/C#, others suggest new features that all of the languages could take advantage of.