Honest question: Is this any different from on iOS? Are you allowed to create native code-generators on iOS?<p>If not, why do we all of a sudden care about this now?
I wonder if Windows 8 will be the death of the Windows platform. Horrible Desktop experience, great Tablet experience but no apps.<p>But if Windows dies, what then can replace it? Will we see another XP, except one that goes unreplaced? Microsoft making a U-Turn?<p>Or possibly, another Operating System? Android? Chrome OS? Ubuntu?<p>Whatever happens, Windows 8, its launch, and aftermath will certainly be interesting, "good" or not.
For those who read the title and started worrying that JavaScript will return to the stone age of performance: JS <i>will be JIT-compiled on Windows 8 for ARM</i> - but only in IE10.
Furthermore, HTML5/Metro apps - unlike similar kind of applications on iOS - <i>will be</i> JIT compiled and hardware accelerated too. Source: <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/02/07/high-performance-html5-content-in-metro-style-apps.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/02/07/high-performan...</a>
Couldn't the various JIT languages piggyback on the CLR? That is, they wouldn't JIT to ARM, but compile to CLR and then execute that.<p>Of course, that's some mighty overhead for "just one" platform.
If this is correct, then this matters <i>much, much</i> more than the sensationalism surrounding browsers on WoA being unable to run as desktop apps.<p>The entire focus of WoA is pretty much Metro-style apps, with Office on the desktop as something on the aside, so why would it matter that another browser can't place itself into the desktop? But if other browsers are actually going to be disadvantaged backend-wise, then that's something to worry about.
Microsoft totally missed the opportunity to make something open and wonderful. Now, we're basically getting iPads, but with bright cyan colors and a chronic inability to fit huge 128pt words on one page. "MUSI" "PICTUR" "SOCIA"
I think the OP has jumped to a conclusion.<p>In the worst case you should be able to write a driver using the DDK (some drivers will absolutely need dynamic code) to circumvent the problem.<p>More likely there are things in the huge, in flux and poorly documented API that will let you do it.