Overview
Target Audience: Professional DevelopersAbout the Technology: Windows XP is the grand finale to a product and technology arc that started with Windows 95 and Windows NT. Windows XP combines the experience, robustness, and compatibility of the existing product lines into a single platform that is great for businesses, consumers, and partners alike. Longhorn delivers new scenarios for knowledge workers and a new application platform based on .NET in new form factors like Tablet PC that will take the PC where it has never been before. Central to this Client OS is the revision and upgrade of all the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to take advantage of the "managed code" of the .NET Framework, along with updated and enhanced User Interface features which represent the latest thinking in user experience design techniques
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewAt its last Professional Developer’s Conference, Microsoft previewed Longhorn technologies that will transform life for every Windows developer. Central to Longhorn is WinFX, a new API that fully replaces Win32 and goes far beyond .NET 1.0/1.1. Introducing WinFX is a fast-paced briefing on WinFX: how it works, and how to start messing around with Microsoft’s preview code.
Brent Rector starts by showing how Longhorn combines the best features of Web and Windows development in one programming model based on managed code. With it, developers should be able to develop rich applications that run on Windows boxes or web browsers -- all from one code base.
He then introduces XAML, Microsoft’s new markup language for creating UIs. (It won’t do everything, but it’ll do a lot. Rector takes it for a spin, then shows how to integrate it with conventional code.)
You’ll walk through building Longhorn executables, library assemblies, and documents; and working with UI and page layout controls. Rector next discusses the WinFS file system, showing how to use it to hands data access, manipulation, synchronization, and more.
Rector then turns to Longhorn’s impressive Indigo web services messaging infrastructure. Here, as elsewhere, the explanations are prologue to plenty of sample code. He wraps up with WinFX’s new features for building mobile-aware applications.
Doubtless Longhorn and WinFX will evolve. But if you want to be on the leading edge of Windows development, where the money is, now’s the time to get started. And this is the book. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.