CHAPTER 1 THE PHILOSOPHY OF .NET
In addition, these applications are created using a completely new set of namespaces, all of which
begin with the root name Windows. Figure 1-13 shows various WinRT namespaces displayed in the Visual
Studio object browser.
Figure 1-13. The Windows.* namespaces are only used to build Windows 8 applications
As luck would have it, the Windows.* namespaces offer functionality that mirrors many APIs of the
.NET base class libraries. In fact, from a programming point of view, building an application for WinRT
feels very similar to building a .NET application for the CLR. For example, Windows 8 applications can
be constructed using C# (as well as with Visual Basic, JavaScript, or C++).
As well, many of the Windows.* namespaces offer similar (though not identical) functionality as is
found in the .NET base class libraries. By way of one example, later in this text (see Chapters 27–31), you
will examine a .NET technology termed Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Here, you will learn
about an XML-based grammar named XAML. Should you begin to explore how to Windows 8
applications, you will be happy to see that they are created using XAML as well (or possibly using
HTML5, if your language of choice is JavaScript), and have a very similar programming model to a WPF
program constructed with the .NET platform.
The Role of .NET Under Windows 8
In addition to the Windows.* namespaces, Windows 8 applications can also make use of a large subset of
the .NET platform. Collectively, the .NET APIs for Windows 8 applications, provide support for generic
collections, LINQ, XML document processing, I/O services, security services, and other topics explored
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