But there are workarounds; wine, virtualbox, and their is a dual-boot option. Plus there are a few developers interested in making Linux-friendly games. Not many granted, but still there if you dig ;)

I'm not too concerned, personally I'm going dual-boot.

Does that mission include also the WinXP/7-like desktop (and their apps/games), or are they just dragged along for now because many PC users still use them?

If not, then I guess one of the intentions of Microsoft, besides those you already mentioned, will be the sole distributor of Windows apps/games. This latest move, if true, seems just another push trying to move the future Windows world away from the desktop world, to the glorious new Metro world controlled solely by MS.

Since MS seems to have become the Nintendo or Sony of this console generation, maybe they also wish people to perform their more costly AAAA gaming on XBox, and Windows will mostly be for cheaper casual (Metro) gaming.

Pre-8 OSes are definitely dragged along, with attention only shown to 7 just because it is their current OS and probably the one that people will be using for a long time (in business environment).

Gaming related, those developers that want to use XBOX LIVE for their games, will distribute the games through Windows Store in 8, and if they want to support 7, Vista and XP users, they will also have to distribute their games through Xbox.com / GfWL.

About what you said last, I think it will be a lot easier for developers to use both Windows and 360 for distribution of their AAA games since now XBOX LIVE is preinstalled (afaik, it came preinstalled in the CP) on all Windows installations, so users won't have to download other applications (like GfWL with XP / Vista / 7), and their Windows games will just work.

That is, if they decide to use XBOX LIVE, and not Origin / Steam / whatever for the Windows versions of their games.

I expect Windows Store to feature more indie and casual games in the first year or two, because most big publishers either have their own store or are using somebody else's store.

EDIT: I don't know whether what I wrote is 100% correct, since there really has been no info on how non-casual XBOX LIVE games will be distributed (none that I am aware of, that is).

EDIT2: What I think is freaking stupid is the fact that they don't allow C# and VB for developing games, yet they allow the abomination called JavaScript. Fuck!

Umm XNA supports both... has done for awhile now and since it's being made RT compatible...

It is? Woa, that is ... hell yea, awesome! Really?

Source, please! :)

XNA dev forums theres a post about the next XNA update can't link now since my access lapsed last night >.<

Is it this one?

http://anxframework.codeplex.com/

no the beta (invite only) part of http://create.msdn.com/en-US/

Ah, okay. So, long story short, we will be able to make Metro style games using XNA / C#?

(and get the packages signed and distributed through Windows Store?)

Apparently so. I'm also expecting the allowed DX versions to be updated soon it's currently limited for compatibility reasons (360) so with the next gen release that's likely to change

IPv4 already has it's successor, DNS works relatively well for what it does and there and there are tons of other protocol than http, but...

(all that follows is of course only my personal opinion and nothing more :) )

HTML was originally supposed to be human readable and semantically structured, but nowadays it's usually neither, thanks to dynamically created pages it's DIV inside DIV inside DIV inside DIV... repeat 300x (with sometime with a little SPAN in the middle to prevent monotony), you have to use external tools if you want to make out anything out of it and the semantic part is totally forgotten.

And more and more you don't even need to care at all about HTML, you write JS and let everything being auto-generated (e.g. Ext JS)

Speaking of Javascript, it was ok as a simple scripting language, but as a full fledged programing language it's not; it's a bastard construct stuck between static language without any of their advantages and dynamic language but once again without the conveniences that more modern dynamic languages provides. If you want to do serious work with it you are stuck to using all sort of third party framework to hide or at least ease all the ugly plumbing.


So yes I am all for open standards but I would definitely prefer to have better ones for web development.

I don't think I know a single person that has ever said a good thing about JS. :)

I was actually reffering to what TBL regards as his biggest mistake the phrase "http:// www" :P

And no DNS is a freaking NIGHTMARE it has no built in security, no safety protocols, no redundancy, DNS poisoning etc etc it's the biggest problem in the current system. And sure IPv6 is good BUT we're still stuck with IPv4 for atleast 2-3 more years (longer is more likely as most home routers don't have IPv6 option and most ISP's aren't even thinking about it)

Do Nothing Sh*t(DNS).. JavaSh*t KILL IT KILL IT!! the horror!

I agree, I'm very happy with windoze 7.