Thoughts after the Build Windows keynote: This changes nothing

Nothing has changed, and this is a good thing.

Here is what I took away from yesterdays keynote:

  • Everything I’m doing today with Windows desktop apps will work on Windows 8. No surprise there.
  • If I want to write these new WinRT apps I’ll have to leave Winforms or WPF behind and use what looks like some kind of desktop Silverlight UI control library which has been enhanced with some more controls. (The GridView was shown in the keynote.)
  • There is nothing else to say about the developer story. Everything else shown in the keynote was about consumer experience.

Watching my own twitter feed was rather comical. Everyone seemed to be hearing exactly what they wanted to hear. Sometimes it was the opposite of what I thought I just heard.

There are still lots of unanswered questions, but I’m sure that in the next few days these will all be answered via sessions and blog posts containing the content of the sessions. I’m surprised people aren’t more patient. I’m actually seeing a bit of FUD email and tweets asking questions that should be answered by the end of the week. Be patient.