AI For The Developer

Microsoft has released a preview extension of their IntelliCode AI developer functionality here.

IntelliCode is a set of AI-assisted capabilities that improve developer productivity with features like contextual IntelliSense, inference for code styles, and focused reviews for your pull requests (PRs.).

At the moment this is a preview extension for Visual Studio 2017, but the team are looking into integrating this functionality directly into Visual Studio in a future release.

I’ve been using the extension for a few hours and it does seem to help with the little code I’ve authored, but it’s too early for me to say if this will become an essential part of my toolkit, but initial impressions are promising.

You can read more on IntelliCode here.

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If Microsoft aren’t using Xamarin, why should I?

Microsoft, in a move that many developers were hoping for, purchased the really rather brilliant company Xamarin. Xamarin provides a tool to write cross platform apps from one code base, namely C#. Brilliant! Now the promise of being able to develop for iOS, Android and Windows from the one code base could become a reality without costing a fortune!

Microsoft also purchased Wunderlist. This will gradually be retired in favour of their new application, Microsoft ToDo. Microsoft recently released clients for Windows, Windows Phone, iOS and Android.

None of which were written in Xamarin apparently.

Why?

I can’t find any details of which Microsoft first party apps for iOS and Android are written in Xamarin, but I suspect it’s not many.

It should be a case that virtually all Apps from Microsoft should be written in Xamarin (with the possible exception of those requiring a significant of low level access, and even then I’m not convinced they couldn’t be coded partially in Xamarin if it’s as good as portrayed).

Microsoft used to be the best at eating their own dog food. If they are indeed doing this, isn’t it time we were told?

David Cutler

A brief interview with a genius.

Read more at http://news.microsoft.com/features/the-engineers-engineer-computer-industry-luminaries-salute-dave-cutlers-five-decade-long-quest-for-quality/#sm.00001mwq8ils3ad4ny3qdf0w01ba7

Microsoft buys Xamarin

About time.

Not just got the technology, but just as much (if not more so) for the awesome staff.

Good move.

So now the bridges really can go both ways.

The top 1%

Or to put it more accurately, the bottom 1%.

That’s where market share of Windows Mobile has plummeted to (worldwide, I see quite a few WM phones in the wild here), and it’s depressing. As one developer who is pulling out of Windows Mobile put it “the market share is falling, and Microsoft doesn’t seem to be doing anything to combat it”.

And finally, I’ve come to agree.

I think Microsoft does see a future in Windows Phone, but it doesn’t see it as anything other than rounding out its offerings and as an insurance policy if they get locked out of Android or iOS.

What a shame. Competition was good, and having a third player is better than having two competing companies for everyone involved. Plus, I do genuinely believe Windows Mobile has the better interface, but that’s now largely academic.

So My lowly Lumia 550 may well be my last Windows Mobile device, even if the surface phone was to arrive. This makes me sad as it feels like taking a step back.

So where to next? Well, probably Android rather than iOS, purely because I’ll probably be concentrating my development efforts there, now Windows Mobile is effectively dead.

Which itself is interesting. I spent some time refreshing my Android knowledge mid last year, only to switch back to Universal Apps and then ASP.Net/Knockout/Bootstrap as work dictated.

With Windows Mobile out of the picture there isn’t as much of a draw to develop Universal Applications, after all, they’ll be universal on what?

HoloLens? Brilliant. No good to me now though.

IoT? Very interesting. But not commercially any use for me.

XBox? I love my XBox. I’m not interested in developing for it.

There’s only one thing that Microsoft can do to reignite my interest in Universal Applications right now – add Android compatibility.

Microsoft dropped the Astoria bridge (or at least postponed it indefinitely) which bought Android applications over to Windows Mobile. Perhaps it is looking at the problem the opposite way around now – bring Windows Universal applications over to Android.

That would be great!

But what would Microsoft get out of it?

Possibly sales of its development tools, which is not to be sniffed at.

If the apps go in the Amazon or Google Play stores they won’t get a cut of the revenue there, but licensing apps developed with the technology could also produce a revenue stream (although be unpopular I’d imagine). Or launch their own store, which would be silly.

Or perhaps the best thing they would get is more apps in the Windows 10 store – both desktop and mobile. That would be one hell of a Trojan horse. Possibly even enough to make Windows Mobile a viable proposition again if enough apps were released this route…

That’s one hell of a long shot, based on zero evidence. It’s just flights of fancy from a disheartened developer. But my god it’s appealing!

But that’s not where the company is going. They are more interested in seeing people using their services on whatever platform these days, and that is a good thing for them. The days of Windows being king are long gone, as well they should be in this new world.

But a unified development platform could also be potentially good for Microsoft. They too would benefit from the develop once run anywhere model that Java never quite achieved. But it’s a lot of work with many compromises…. which they have already worked out how to address with the current UWP implementation.

So come on Microsoft – make Universal Apps that little bit more Universal, and restore my faith!

Until then, I’m going back to the web.

Free Books

For quite some time now the nice people at Packt Publishing have been offering a free technical eBook each day. I’ve spent hundreds of pounds on Packt books over the years, both as physical copies and eBook downloads, and they tend to be very well written, so getting extra titles gratis is an offer too good to miss.

The free books on offer are often not the latest versions, but many are surprisingly recent and well worth a read, or just downloading if you think you may refer to them at some point in the future.

Why not take a look at https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning, and while you’re there you may even find some more books worth paying for too!

Developing for Android…

So with the exciting times ahead now that Windows 10 has released with all its UWP goodness, I’ll be concentrating on getting up to speed with this as a priority, no?

Erm… well I was, but unfortunately I also have to pay the bills. As a result I’m buried in the second edition of The Big Nerd Ranch’s “Android Programming” book for work and hoping to get onto an Android project at some point (unless anyone else wants to make me an offer?)

I’ve done a (very) little Android programming before, and I have plenty of experience in Java, so this book can seem a little simple at times, but it’s probably what I need. So far I’m quite enjoying working through it.

Whilst I’d rather be concentrating on UWP right now, I think it’s healthy to have an understanding in Android too (that’s why I also work in both C# and Java). If iOS could be programmed in Java or C# (yes – I know about Xamarin, but it is very expensive to use if you fund it yourself) I’d be all over that too, but I think picking up iOS and either Objective C or Swift would be spreading myself too thinly right now.

So I’ll just restrict myself to the 81.1% + 2.9% of devices for now.