C/C++/C# Compilation on Windows RT

[N4g4rok]

Has anyone heard if this is going to be possible? I've got a remote server solution set up, but certainly wouldn't mind the ability to compile and debug locally.

[PhatoseAlpha]

Nothing solid. C/C++ will be possible eventually - there are simply too many compilers out there for it not to happen. C# seems far less likely given the way Microsoft is abandoning .Net.

[Markbnj]

Originally Posted by PhatoseAlpha

C# seems far less likely given the way Microsoft is abandoning .Net.

That's the second or third time I've read that on this board in the last couple of months. Do you really think that's what's going on? We'd all agree on the declining relevance of .NET/WPF/Silverlight in the user-facing application space, in favor of HTML5 + javascript or native mobile apps. But "abandoning .NET"? What's going to replace it as the API to the underlying operating system on the server-side? What's going to provide the integration between web server, database, network, file system, etc.? I might never write another native .NET desktop application, but I'm all over MVC4 for web applications and service APIs on SQL Server, MySQL, Mongo, whatever. If they are abandoning .NET then they are abandoning the enterprise server space, and I'm guessing that is not their intention.

[DaveSimmons]

Even for the desktop, there are always going to be applications that require things that HTML5 won't be able to deliver well any time soon:

- Offline use
- "Fancy" user interfaces that require more than CSS offers
- File system and resource access
- Performance

Yes, someday there might be enough standard extensions to JS to make all of that work, but it's years away.

[N4g4rok]

Originally Posted by PhatoseAlpha

C# seems far less likely given the way Microsoft is abandoning .Net.

That would be a shame. I like .NET

Any idea where some ARM-friendly compilers might be? I'm assuming versions of gcc and g++ are compatible with ARM, i'm hoping that means there's already something out there that will work on RT after some effort.

[cytg111]

I have no idea where this "abandoning .Net" is coming from, and logically, think about it, what is going to replace it? I mean the whole stack? Right Nothing.

While WPF is fading i think that is a shame too .. I like WPF for C# alot, it rocks .. I've never had better seperation of gui and code, mvvm ftw.

edit. oh, i considered the surface as my first tablet, but since there are NO dev tools for it (forget visual studio) the deal was sorta bunk for me. The surface pro's battery life on the other hand is also kind of a deal breaker .

[Markbnj]

Originally Posted by cytg111

While WPF is fading i think that is a shame too .. I like WPF for C# alot, it rocks .. I've never had better seperation of gui and code, mvvm ftw.

I agree, it's sweet, and the most natural way to construct native GUIs that I've ever used. It's just a little bit on the wrong side of history.

[Obsoleet]

Originally Posted by cytg111

I have no idea where this "abandoning .Net" is coming from, and logically, think about it, what is going to replace it? I mean the whole stack? Right Nothing.

Originally Posted by Markbnj

That's the second or third time I've read that on this board in the last couple of months. Do you really think that's what's going on? We'd all agree on the declining relevance of .NET/WPF/Silverlight in the user-facing application space, in favor of HTML5 + javascript or native mobile apps. But "abandoning .NET"?

I think he meant backing away from and lessening focus on it due to the elevation of HTML5+JS and C++ on Win8. Much of it based in this article (among others) http://arstechnica.com/information-t...-dream-reborn/

That said, don't be surprised if they do outright abandon .Net (not saying that's likely, there's no reason to abandon it that I'm aware of). MS will do as they have always done, if they can draw in more developers for any reason whatsoever, they will.

It's probably more the focus on C# that's lessening than .Net. Again, to draw in non-MS developers. It's going to be about money for them.

HTML5/JS, C++, there's no real tie to a company with those technologies.. MS will embrace popular community-sourced technologies in the end- when their plans to run the show from start to finish blow up.

[Graze]

.Net isn't going anyway

[Obsoleet]

Lesson learned: don't tie yourself to a corporate sourced technology, and you'll have no worries or fears that your efforts were wiped out with the stroke of a pen in a boardroom.

[douglasb]

Originally Posted by Obsoleet

Lesson learned: don't tie yourself to a corporate sourced technology, and you'll have no worries or fears that your efforts were wiped out with the stroke of a pen in a boardroom.

Well, aren't you quite the rebel? Technically, virtually every technology you can think of is "corporate-sourced". Unix, C, and C++, all of which you seem to be quite fond of, were all developed by AT&T/Bell Labs, which was such a mega-corporation that it had to be broken apart by the government.

[Obsoleet]

Originally Posted by douglasb

Well, aren't you quite the rebel? Technically, virtually every technology you can think of is "corporate-sourced". Unix, C, and C++, all of which you seem to be quite fond of, were all developed by AT&T/Bell Labs, which was such a mega-corporation that it had to be broken apart by the government.

And thank god for that mega corporation receiving that treatment. It was the birth of the modern open source model, which after the 90's dark ages has finally become the dominant model in the computing world today.

Unix was always open source, because ATT was forbidden from entering the computing market, there was no advantage to keeping the source.
If only MS's products were forced off the market and opensourced, and if the source code is worth keeping over Linux (doubtful, but it is very polished from a user standpoint).. they'd also live on forever.
Instead they'll die, along with your product specific knowledge built on them.

And it's for that reason you will never, ever see the level of open source adoption for a MS sourced technology that you do with *nix, C, C++. While I welcome Mono's small movement on the MS side of technology, it's nothing compared to the *nix world and associated technologies (namely, Linux and C).

[douglasb]

Some people get paid very, very well for their in-depth "product-specific" knowledge. Consider the fact that Windows XP, Vista, and 7 have almost a 90% market share. And that isn't including the various Windows Server OS'es, or Windows 8. Based on that, I don't think you can fairly say that Microsoft or its products are dying any time soon.

So just because you don't like it, doesn't make it less relevant to the rest of the world.

P.S. - Open source stuff dies, too. Anybody remember OpenSolaris? Or ARC? I know that technically somebody could "dig them up" and work on them, but they are effectively dead. WebOS is quickly headed in this direction as well.

[Markbnj]

I don't even know what "open source" is supposed to mean anymore. There were people giving away their source code (including me) twenty years before I ever heard the term used. And when I look at the open source world today I see platforms largely controlled by corporations, some of them very large. The entire mobile space is split between Google and Apple, two of the largest.

I love sharing code, and I love the idea of open source software, but I have never gotten this anti-corporate, anti-capitalist thing most people who self-identify as "open source developers" have going on. The very foundations of everything we do as developers would have been impossible without the investment of large, for-profit corporations and the government, which is in many ways the largest, most controlling corporation of all. People who make their living writing software and harbor a negative attitude toward big business strike me a little like people going to protest "big oil" driving cars, wearing clothes, and using devices that would all be impossible without a steady supply of petroleum.

[Obsoleet]

Originally Posted by douglasb

Some people get paid very, very well for their in-depth "product-specific" knowledge. Consider the fact that Windows XP, Vista, and 7 have almost a 90% market share. And that isn't including the various Windows Server OS'es, or Windows 8. Based on that, I don't think you can fairly say that Microsoft or its products are dying any time soon.

So just because you don't like it, doesn't make it less relevant to the rest of the world.

P.S. - Open source stuff dies, too. Anybody remember OpenSolaris? Or ARC? I know that technically somebody could "dig them up" and work on them, but they are effectively dead. WebOS is quickly headed in this direction as well.

Yup. Not the way I choose to make money. I suggest transferable skill rather than product knowledge. Spend your time doing that, learn SQL, learn PHP- not learning more about Citrix products.

My career is mostly tied to products, but I'm working my hardest at getting out from under that trap. To diversify into (more) transferable skills (because everything has some sort of transferrable value in being experience).
It's up to you, but I can't sit here and defend product specific skills even if it does pay. It's good for the source company, bad for the company tied to the product and bad for the employee.

[slugg]

Originally Posted by Obsoleet

Yup. Not the way I choose to make money. I suggest transferable skill rather than product knowledge. Spend your time doing that, learn SQL, learn PHP- not learning more about Citrix products.

My career is mostly tied to products, but I'm working my hardest at getting out from under that trap. To diversify into (more) transferable skills (because everything has some sort of transferrable value in being experience).
It's up to you, but I can't sit here and defend product specific skills even if it does pay. It's good for the source company, bad for the company tied to the product and bad for the employee.

So you're saying that it's better to reinvent the wheel every time you want to implement something? That's not a good way to make money.