Win 8 OS and Learning a Language

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The following post was written a week ago. However with my schedule things got pushed back. I apologize for "old" news. 
This mornings coffee reading, was about the leaks that came out surrounding Windows 8. We’re not sure if what we are looking at are really going to be in the operating system, but they are fun to dream and banter whether or not the changes will be good for the system or bad.
Long Zheng over the weekend posted screenshots released by Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20110403/windows-8-explorer-teases-file-syncing-and-web-sharing/ note that the circles are placeholders for the eventual icons that will live in the ribbon and other menus. There of course is talk of having “sync” capabilities with Mesh or SkyDrive storage that is tied to your Live account; these are raising some questions of anti-trust again. Some other ideas that have been floating around is that Windows 8 will borrow more from the Win7 phone model; Making Xbox Live and Kinect features embedded into the operating system. 
I personally would like to see more work being done on alternative GUI’s and NUI’s for multiple hardware that might run Microsoft OS’s. It’s more work in the beginning and more to maintain, but I think it would pay dividends, as it would open up different hardware choices. I think this is apparent in Win7 phone GUI’s and especially in the success of Surface. Stripping away the OS’s GUI in Surface allowed a specific and tailored experience unique to the hardware. I belive it is the only way that MS will have any real chance in the tablet marketplace.

Topic Shift-
Learn a language! I remember hearing that phrase when I was in high school. So I tried Spanish and failed miserably. As a technologist I here that same phrase come out of my mouth to young people all the time. This time I mean a programming language. I have learned the importance of learning at least one programming language. I learned XAML and C# so that I could write code for programs running on the Microsoft Surface that the Harrison Institute at University of Virginia Library purchased back in 2008/09. I dabbled with Java before, but didn’t have the do or die type scenario that I had surrounding the Surface programming. Since then I’ve needed to learn Java, PHP, and for my personal computer based creativity Processing (java’ish) and now Impromptu (Lisp). Being that I was familiar with C#, which shares C as an ancestor with Java, it was a more shallow learning curve. It’s similar to learning any language with Latin somewhere in it’s roots. 
Some of the languages I have been exploring and learning and some cases re-learning lately have been:
Scheme: Which is part of the LISP family of languages. I've been using it in a music and video program called Impromptu as a way to create auto-generated music.
BASIC: As a way to get back to my roots and this time take it seriously.
SimpleBasic: Again as a way to take more time with the building blocks of future coding. Also what I intend on teaching my kids.
Processing: It's more of an all in one IDE/Language type situation. It is derived from Java so it's a good way to have fun while learning some Java syntax.

Happy coding.
 

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