Microsoft Build 2018 Day 2 Keynote Summary: Better developer experiences across devices

This blog is my takeaways from Microsoft’s Build 2018 conference, Day 2.

Communication is such an essential skill and it is even more crucial in today’s connected world. I love what Microsoft are doing with ML in Word, with WinML. It will improve people’s written communication skills since it improves the spell and grammar. This is an awesome experience and can help ANYONE to be a better writer, including kids. I do think that some people can get put off writing because they are worried about the spelling and grammar, and I hope that this will empower them. It’s also important for people with dyslexia since it can give them more confidence in their written communication. Kevin Gallo says Microsoft is also using Windows ML in their own products. The demo showed intelligent grammar checking, and that ability can be life changing for people who need the help.

For developers, the key takeaway was about making the pieces integrate and unify much more easily so that the developer experience is better.  Windows development will be one seamless experience, across all devices. I think that it is really a new Microsoft and honestly, I was so excited that Satya Nadella is doing the keynote at Build because I knew that there were good things coming!

Developers will be able to bring Fluent Design to applications built on Win32 via UWP XAML Islands, which will allow developers to access more XAML controls for their app. This can be achieved UI stack you use—whether it’s Windows Forms, WPF, or native Win32. In the Day 2 demo, XAML Islands integrated with Time and, for good measure, Sets as well. The demo also added in some Custom Vision Service, ONNX and Windows ML. The Windows UI LIbrary will provide native platform controls, and it will be available on Nuget. The controls are the same ones that ship in the platform, and the same ones that Windows uses in its own solutions.

Microsoft have decoupled .NET updates from Windows updates with .Net Core 3; so you can perform .NET Core updates without updating the whole OS. If you are developer and you are itching to get work done, you can see why you’d get frustrated waiting for updates, and this will help you to manage your time better.

I’m also excited that there is more Azure Cosmos DB news. With #CosmosDB’s new multi-master support, you can direct your writes to any region where your DB is deployed. This means that you will get a write availability that’s equivalent with Cosmos DB’s best-in-class read availability. This is great for developers and for people who are accessing apps which rely on Azure Cosmos DB.

Fluenting is also improved by the Ink Analysis for Cognitive Services Labs, more details here: https://sulav.at/2IiJmtI 

They fixed Notepad! It now supports Linux line feeds. It’s the small things, right? It all means that developers have got the best dev box, ever.

Developers are incredibly creative and I look forward to seeing what people will do with it.