News from Build 2013

Sela and Microsoft VP R&D ForumSeptember 11, 2013

Dev News from Build

Sasha Goldshtein @goldshtnCTO, Sela Group blog.sashag.net

Directions

• RTM August 2013, GA October 2013

Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2

• Continuous delivery, new features/updates every 2-4 weeks

Windows Azure

• RTM in Q4

Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1

• Big updates coming in VS2013 and subsequent updates

Going Native (C++)

• In Visual Studio post-2013

.NET Languages vNext

What’s New in Windows 8.1?

• Pseudo Start button• Desktop background as Start screen

background• Boot to desktop• Slightly modified default search

experience• Arbitrary proportions in snapped view

Concessions from Windows 8

What’s New in Windows 8.1?

• Some more WinRT APIs available to desktop apps (SMS, sensors, geolocation, scanning, capture, local toast notifications, …)

• USB, Bluetooth, HID devices (point of sale)• Scanning• 3D printing• Speech synthesis• Contacts and appointments• And miscellanea: HTTP client, PDF export,

PlayTo extensions, …

Development Platform Improvements

What’s New in Windows 8.1?

• New and updated controls: date and time pickers, flyouts, better AppBar buttons, search box, …

• True WebView control in the visual tree• Loading WebView resources from dynamic

storage (eBooks, …)• Multi-monitor DPI awareness• Enhanced data binding• Custom navigation stack support• Performance improvements in startup and

XAML loading

XAML Improvements

What’s New in Windows Azure?

Dev/Test Offering

• MSDN use rights allowed in Windows Azure

• Per-minute billing for VMs

• No charge for stopped VMs

• Super-discounted dev/test rates for Windows Server, SQL Server, BizTalk Server

MSDN Credits Model

• Professional = $50/mo

• Premium = $100/mo• Ultimate = $150/mo• Example: $100 =

spin up 80 VMs for 20 hour load test

What’s New in Windows Azure?

Mobile Services

• Custom API support• Source control

support (Git at this time)

• Integration with Notification Hubs

Mobile Notification Hubs

• Blast out push notifications to millions of users

• Unlimited tags associated with each subscriber

• Support for all four major platforms

• Templates so you can push with a single call

What’s New in Windows Azure?

Auto-Scale Preview

• Set up scale rules for your Web Sites, Mobile Services, Cloud Services, and Virtual Machines

• Based on CPU % and/or storage queue depth

• Can set up different rules for day/night, weekday/weekend

Alert Rules Preview

• Monitor metrics and send alerts when they are exceeded

• E.g., when CPU % for MyVM goes above 95 for five minutes, send an email to all administrators

What’s New in Windows Azure?

• Web Sites is GA

• Mobile Services is GA

• SSL for custom domains in Azure Web Sites

• Automatic SQL database exports

• Import Virtual Machines from Open Depot

• BizTalk Services Preview

What’s New in Visual Studio 2013?

The Connected IDE

• Haven’t you always wanted to sign in to your Visual Studio?

• Synchronized settings between machines

• Easier to get started with Visual Studio

• Automatic TFS Online integration

• Notification center

Productivity

• Better auto-completion

• IntelliSense and Go To Definition for XAML

• More refactorings• Code Lens• Code Maps

What’s New in Visual Studio 2013?

New Performance Tools

• Memory and performance profiling for JavaScript apps

• Power (energy) profiling for Windows Store and Windows Phone apps

• Memory leak analysis for all .NET apps

• Graphics Diagnostics for Windows Store apps

Miscellaneous

• Performance improvements

• Coded UI Tests for XAML Windows Store apps

• More themes

What’s New in .NET 4.5.1?

• Just like .NET 4.5 and supposed to be fully backward compatible

In-place Upgrade

• EventSource support (for ETW)• Explicit LOH compaction during GC• Edit-and-continue for 64-bit code• Better async-aware debugging

New Features

Going Native?

• Visual Studio 2013 brings us even closer to C++11 conformance and starts introducing C++14 tentative features!• Full C++11 conformance probably in 2-3 subsequent

updates• Major features from C++14 will be included first

• New feature sampler:• Variadic templates• Initializer lists• Raw string literals

• C++ REST SDK (Casablanca)

• Better auto-vectorizer and __vectorcall

• Much better IntelliSense and code completion

Summary

• Fast and accelerating release cadence from most Microsoft groups, including Windows

• Some areas seem frozen but there is work under-the-covers

• The new Microsoft: more open to feedback and integration with other technologies

Sela and Microsoft VP R&D ForumSeptember 11, 2013

Thank You!

Sasha Goldshtein @goldshtnCTO, Sela Group blog.sashag.net