Apologies for the glut of Microsoft posts but obviously this is something I’m passionate about

I have a lot of respect for Bill Wagner.  His books on C# were my primary reference for many years (and might still be had I not committed most the lessons therein to memory).   But his post on Windows 8 is misleading.  He gives 3 arguments in favor of the new shell.  To be honest the third argument  made no sense to me.  But I address the other two below…

It’s time: While there have been several improvements and refinements over time, the current shell is fundamentally similar to Windows 95. Revolutionary in its day, that was 15 years ago. Desktops were more prevalent that laptops. Tablets were primarily a research toy, not a production device. The term “Smart Phone” didn’t exist. The idea of connecting a TV to the internet made no sense.

I’m not disagreeing with the statement that “It’s time” because that’s entirely subjective.  But to say Windows 95 was “Revolutionary in its day” is just incorrect.  In fact just the opposite is true.  Microsoft lagged behind Apple with its MacOS and IBM which had pushed OS/2 Warp out nearly a year earlier.  Both had similar shells.  So there were many great things about Windows 95 but being revolutionary wasn’t one of them.

Consistency: Consistent user experience is very important. It enables users to leverage what they’ve learned in one application (or device) and apply it to new experiences. That doesn’t necessarily mean having identical experiences everywhere, but it does mean having a consistent experience everywhere.

Consumers want to leverage the same skills whether they are using a phone, tablet, desktop/laptop, surface, or TV screen.

How this is an argument for Windows 8’s new shell I really don’t know.  As he points out in the earlier section the Windows 8 UI is revolutionary in many ways meaning it doesn’t resemble anything else on the market (except Windows Phone which almost no one uses yet).  Beyond that Windows 8 isn’t even internally consistent since it opens up a classic Windows desktop to run legacy apps.

Next he goes on to the developer issue.  He says…

I’ve said nothing about the developer story. I really don’t know. You’ve undoubtedly heard discussions around C++ (or WinC++), and HTML5/JavaScript. Those technologies make sense, for different reasons.

C++ still has a larger developer community that any other programming language on the planet. With so much emphasis on .NET and managed code, the market seemed to forget that Microsoft has one of the major C++ compilers, and produces many familiar windows applications.

I don’t know what he bases that on.  None of the major Operating System manufacturers use C++ as their primary development environment (Apple: Objective-C, Microsoft: C#, Google: Java).  Plus C++ is a distant third in the TIOBE index as well. 

HTML5 and JavaScript are the hot new technologies, and are receiving tremendous buzz. Microsoft cannot ignore them, and it’s smart to announce support for them in the next version of Windows as early as possible.

No one’s against them supporting HTML5 and Javascript.  The issue is making it their primary focus at the expense of existing technologies. 

I’ve been accused of being on a rampage against anyone who supports the new Windows 8 interface.  That’s really not the case.  I’m actually in favor of it to a large extent.  I don’t believe users will embrace it but I hope I’m wrong.  But the issue here is he’s using false references to make the shell look like a safer bet than it is.  That’s what I have a problem with.