Decisions, Decisions - Which Windows 8 Programming Paradigm Should We Use

When Microsoft first announced that they would support three programming options for their Windows 8 Store apps – C#/XAML, C++/CX/XAML, and JavaScript/HTML – many organizations such as my benevolent employer, CTS, asked the question "which model is best?" After all, Microsoft has gone out of its way to declare all of them "First class citizens," and in the spirit of egalitarianism, we need to analyze each option. Our Chief Engineer asked us for our opinions, paying particular attention to three questions:

• Does one platform perform better than another?
• Which platform leverages our predominant actual skill-set as a company?
• Do we have any insight into whether one of these methods will be an industry standard?

To answer our question of which model is right for us, it is important to understand how developing a Windows Store app is different than creating a traditional web app or .NET application, and why Microsoft decided to create the three different programming models. This will get a little geekier than some of my previous posts, so bear with me.