Just attended the Brisbane “Nokia with Windows Phone Training” event.
Thanks to Microsoft and Nokia for setting up this free two-day talkfest!
I got a good overview of the various new features and APIs comprising Windows Phone.
Thanks especially to the presenters Andy Wigley (http://appamundi.com/about/) and Nick Randolph (http://nicksnettravels.builttoroam.com/). They did a good job of showing the tools and APIs: got the right balance between diving deep and splashing around in the shallows.
I came away feeling quite upbeat.
(…this could just be a reflection on how low-down dirty and mean my current project is making me feel, but still…)
As Andy and Nick were speaking I was hacking (I think I was the only attendee nerdy enough to do so); keeping one ear/eye on the presentation and the other ranging between the program and the internet.
As a result, I would like to give you The Finger.
There’s absolutely nothing special here, but it pleased me to be able to knock something together so easily (little things please little minds :-))
Starting from scratch, I worked/hacked out a fair bit:
* the basic framework
* standard pages, pivot pages
* basic event handling
* buttons and menus
* animation with Expression Blend
* icons, tiles
* isolated storage
* tombstoning
* etc., etc.
Not too shabby!
Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and NuGet, I was able to pick up the Coding4Fun colour picker component. I also adopted the Orange Monster (a personal favourite) for the logo.
You can grab the VS solution in all its raw, un-prettified glory!
The Finger follows an enduring Transentia tradition: I typically try to create a (David Flanagan) scribble-style application in any new environment I come across. On this site I already have Java, Groovy, JavaFX and JRuby versions. I have a mental image of a huntin’ ‘n fishin’-style trophy room with walls lined by scribble programs mounted on shields…
I found WP7 substantially easier to program than the iPhone. Give me C# over Objective-C, Expression over Interface Builder and Visual Studio over XCode any day (it hurts me to say that but it’s true, nevertheless). Microsoft have always done good development environments/kits…
Now that the Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been released it is easy to see how Microsoft is trying to link the two platforms together. Both feature big bright tiles/buttons, a swipe-oriented interaction ‘language’ and a set of shared, cloudy services, etc…. Welcome back, my friends to the Microsoft walled community.
Regardless of the technical or other merits of WP7, I predict a bright future: people are always looking for the Next New Thing and WP7 is different enough to be that Next New Thing. It may–just may–even become A Better Thing.
PS:
Just came across this blow-by-blow writeup from a sister event in Melbourne.
