Probably the best language to learn now is Python

Of course, you want the most popular and the most valuable.

According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) , it is Python, the clear winner.

Here are the top ten in its rankings:

Why Python?

The answer appears to the fact that it iss now used for embedded applications and because it has beefed up its repertoire related to AI and Machine learning. It is for this reason R language (somewhat speccialized) has seen some decline.

Microsoft C# is still handing there at 5 and probably its place will be solid 5 for all types of programming - Web, desktop and Mobile. SQL is also there but does not show up as top 10 which is understandable given its area of usage.

Well here is the first 20. Find if your favorite is here

Well, you may want to know the basis for the ranking. You can get to know here.

You can find a lot of posts on R and Python on this site.



You can find a lot of Python and R posts in my blogs.

Finding an element in a JavaScript array.

You can define an array in couple of different ways in JavaScript which essentially is a list of elements. In order to find whether a certain element exists or not, you need to use Array.includes() function as shown in the next example. The argument of this function is the element you want to know exists in the array. JavaScript is case sensitive.

Here is an example of a web page which you can test in your local IIS.

Here is what you see on the browser:

What does JSON.stringify() and JSON.parse() do?

JSON.stringify() takes a JSON Object as an argument and converts it to a JSON string. On the other hand JSON.parse() takes a JSON String as an argument and converts it to an Object.

Example of JSON.parse() here:
http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2018/02/what-does-jsonparse-do.html

Example of JSON.stringify() here:
http://hodentekhelp.blogspot.com/2018/02/what-does-jsonstringify-do.html

TypeScript 2.1 ready to go!

Microsoft's TypeScript (also regarded as industrial strength JavaScript)  is getting upgraded with new features:

Improved Inference
Async Functions

TypeScript 2.0 was released as recent as September 2016. TypeScript 2.1 is in RC (release candidate)

The upgrade makes modelling easier and migrating JavaScript to TypeScript easier. Aysnc/await () introduced in ECMAScript 2016  is featured in the new release and makes asynchronous programming easier. It shares same keywords in C#, Dart and Python.

Here is sample code from the msdn blog links above:
=====
async function main() {
 await ping();
}
async function ping() {
 for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
  await delay(300);
  console.log(“ping”);
 }
}
function delay(ms: number) {
 return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
}
main();
====
Read the rest of the story here if you are into programming with JavaScript.

New JS Foundation launched

The Linux Foundation announced the launch of JS Foundation. JS Foundation will be a new project for everything that developer would be going to the open governed, open source JavaScript.

Both JQuery Foundation and Dojo Foundation plan on joining to create a more forceful new foundation.

The fact is JavaScript has become very popular.

"JavaScript is a pervasive technology, blurring the boundaries between server, client, cloud and IoT. We welcome any projects, organizations or developers looking to help bolster the JavaScript community and inspire the next wave of growth for application development."

The initial members are:

Bocoup
IBM
Ripple
Samsung
Sauce Labs
Sense Technic Systems
Site Pen
StackPath
University of Westminster
WebsiteSetup

There is also a mentor program.

The main motive for the foundation is to encourage and drive JavaScript centric projects towards broad adoption and facilitate ongoing development of related technologies.

Read for more about this interesting article here;
https://adtmag.com/articles/2016/10/17/js-foundation-launched.aspx

Get Node.js tools for Visual Studio

Node.js development is very versatile and you can build scalable network apps. It has great features and if you use Visual Studio Node.js, it  pairs with it very well.

Here are the features that make Visual Studio powerful

• Free and Open Source
• Intelligent code completion
• Advanced debugging and profiling
• Integration with other VS Features

and

Node.js Tools supports:

• Node.js
• io.js
• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• HTML
• CSS
• JSON

Start here to get your Node.Js tools (NTVS 1.1.1 VS2015.msi).

You do not have Visual Studio Community. OK. You can get the Visual Studio Community also from the same link above. Install it first.

I already have Visual Studio 2015 on my Windows 10 Pro laptop. I just need to install the tools.

Double clicking the msi installer file installs Node.js after you accept the Apache License terms.

NodeJsTools_00

When you complete the installation you get the Node.js app installed on your desktop.

NodeJsTools_03

Microsoft's Javascript Engine Chakra will go Open Source

Going Open Source has become the modus operandi to get the most attention. I think this is a great move. Chakra (DOB 2008) is the an excellent JavaScript execution engine, the power behind the Microsoft Edge and other Microsoft Products.

Chakra_02

It is characterized by dependable performance, reliability and ability to scale. Microsoft's move can only result in positive returns to the bottom line.
Of course only the Core parts will go Open Source as ChakraCore.

What is needed in a browser?
Start Fast
Run fast
Deliver great user experience using all that the hardware can offer.
absence of 'we are looking for a solution' messages.
absence of 'A slow running script..."  messages.
The last two are my expectation from any browser (all of the browsers suffer from this). According to msedgedev (dedicated to Microsoft Edge Development site) blog the first three of the above were achieved by a
"unique multi-tiered pipeline that supports an interpreter, a multi-tiered background JIT compiler, and a traditional mark and sweep garbage collector that can do concurrent and partial collections."
Here is a picture from the Edge site:

Chakra_01
Chakra has reached out and influenced other applications such as,
Apps in stores
Server Side applications
Cloud Service
NoSQL Databases
Game engines
Front-end tools
Internet of Things

It is not just Edge Browser but a whole lot of Microsoft technologies from Azure to Xbox that has been benefited. Additionally Chakra supports most of ECMAScript 2015 features.
Actually you can go here and compare the browsers.

Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 apps with Visual Studio 2015 Community

In my previous post I made a premature remark regarding Windows Phone apps. I remarked, "For developing Windows Phone applications you may need to install a different version of Visual Studio.
"
I was wrong.

Well, it turned out that some of the software support is not installed by default and you need to install them clicking on the link you find for many of the templates like 'Windows, Python, F#, etc.".
I tried to install support for Visual C++ under other languages and the following was displayed.


MissingTools.png

I clicked Install to install the necessary components.

MissingTools_1.png

Well you need to close the IDE which allowed you to come to the above. Click Continue. The following features will be installed.

MissingTools_2.png

Clacking Next brings up the next window. Note that you need an additional 2GB space.

MissingTools_3.png

 

Now you are ready to update your tools. Click Update. Here is an intermediate state of installation.

 

 

MissingTools_5.png

The install is completed.

The next time you launch VS 2015 Community you will see the following:

 

MissingTools_6.png

This effectively adds all Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 templates for all languages including JavaScript.

This installation updates Visual Studio 2015 Community in Control Panel|.| Programs.

Here are some more details:

Visual Basic templates now available include the new and classic as shown.

VB_win01.png

These are the Windows 8 related templates (Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Silverlight). Note that the scroll is only halfway. There are many more templates.

VB_win01_W8.png

 

These are the Windows Classic Desktop templates.

VB_win01_Classic.png

 

to be continued..



 

Move on to Visual Studio 2015 RTM / Community

You have been using Visual Studio 2013 or non-rtm versions of Visual Studio 2015. Now Visual Studio 2015 RTM is available and the Visual Studio 2015 Community edition is free. Visual Studio Community is free for individual developers, open source projects, academic research, education, and small professional teams.

All Visual Studio 2015 items shown below can be downloaded from this link.

VS2015RTM01.png

Download button for the Visual Studio 2015 Community is here.

  

VS2015RTM02.png

It has everything you need for productive programming:

• Flexibility- PC, tablet, smartphone OK

• Designers, editors, debuggers, profilers all in one place

• Extensive extensions makes you reach out

• Multiple language support, C#, VB, F#, C++, Python, HTML, JavaScript and more

• Support Windows Desktop Programs, Universal Windows Platform, iOS, and Android

• Develop for web with ASP.NET, Node.js, Python etc with several frameworks(AngularJS, jQuery, Django, etc)

What is TIOBE Index?

TIOBE index provides a measure for the popularity of programming languages as mined from search engines. It includes many browser results as well as covers many programming languages. The index is published every month and for the month of January you can find it here:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

Programming languages C and Java are the top dogs and Javascript jumped from 9 to 7 in January 2015 and C# steady from 2014 to 2015 at 5.

TIOBE Index is calculated by the query +"Language> programming" to the search engines.
Get more info on TIOBE here:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/products/tics/TICS_framework.html

 

Jump start your IoT development with Intel XDK IoT

You are a hobbyist; curious student or a developer-entrepreneur then you must get this kit to jump start your IoT development.

This is still in Beta but it has everything you need in terms of hardware, software, tools and forums to guide you through.

IoT dev kit is a subset of Intel IOT.

The kit consists of the following as seen here:

1) Hardware components (Intel® Galileo and Intel® Edison boards, shields, sensors, actuators)

(2) Software image and/or the software packages

(3) Support for various IDEs allowing you to program in your favorite language

      (Eclipse, Intel XDK IoT Edition, Arduino & Wyliodrin)

(4) Cloud services for a data management and analytics

(5) Additional tools and solutions for optimization and performance

      (Intel System Studio for IoT & Wind River VxWorks for Makers)



Get your Intel XDK IoT Edition here:
https://software.intel.com/en-us/html5/xdk-iothttps://software.intel.com/en-us/html5/xdk-iot

Faster web processing with the new Javascript object SIMD

If you are a HTML5\CSS\Javascript programmer you should look this up.

Parallelism is at the heart of higher performance resulting in lower power requirements and SIMD is
at the fore front. SIMD stands for Single Instruction Multiple Data Instructions. These are called
SIMD instructions that make simlutaneous processing of mulitple data items possible. This is
particularly suited for computations involving image/audio/video; computer vision; preceptual
computing, etc. This kind of operation on multiple data items was not possible directly using
JavaScript till the emrgence of the new Javasript object SIMD.

A picture is worth a paragraph of my gibberish, but here it is for a vector length of 4:

Image Source: https://01.org/node/1495

Here is a quickie on the API:

Here is the speed up in Mozilla browser with processing using SIMD:

The source for the ecmascript for SIMD: ecmascript_simd.js here:

https://github.com/johnmccutchan/ecmascript_simd/blob/master/src/ecmascript_simd.js

 

Creating Flat Design Websites by António Pratas

Creating Flat Design Websites by António Pratas ( http://goo.gl/ZK3CWp) provides a great background for design principles of Flat Design, an approach which is both minimalist and trendy. He really makes a good case to justify the title.

The book is replete with design information and resource links that should be very useful. The preparation of the book uses Photoshop and the exercises slant towards web sites with Mac but the discussion and the ideas of flat design are quite general. The exercises are quite simple and the step-by-step guidance to creating a 1 page site should be very helpful. The codes in the book should be available on the Packt site.

The book provides examples, side by side, a traditional design and a makeover of the same using flat design principles and in most of the cases a great deal of visual clarity and greatly improved usuability has been achieved.

He describes several of the features that one should look for. For example,this is what the author says about usability:

"Most of the times, usability is
just about organization and common sense, and this is a way of working rather
than a technique to be applied. A more innovative interface will be harder to use
in the beginning, but the designer can choose to take this risk to achieve a different
experience."

This brings to my mind the arguments for and againt Desktop and Metro feature differences. Metro is a different experience and if you are used to desktop as in Windows 7 for example, you feel a little intimidated, but it is a different experience.

The author provides this link to how Wikipedia had its makeover going in for flat design. This summarizes what can be achieved with a flat design to get a great looking web page.
http://blog.weare1910.com/post/75576312730/a-readable-wikipedia

This book is about web design and the author does not discuss how the design responds to the different device sizes, a topic the author would no doubt consider for his next book.

In Windows 8.1 Update Microsoft creates a number of templates which are great starting points for creating basically flat design but where you have the opprtunity to tweak to add your signature.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/apps/hh781237.aspx

While looking at flat design you may also want to watch this video:

http://www9.buyerpricer.com/Video.aspx?videoid=skn8pMfbWqY&slk=flat+ui+web+design&cid=3323989914&kwid=20466517441&uq=flat+design+web+sites&nid=2&iscid=2000005&term=flat+ui+web+design&vx=0

I whole heartedly recommend this book if you are contemplating building your own web site.

I was requested by PACKT to write a review and I have received a eBook.

Packt is celebrating 10 years- Get any book or video for $10

 

Packt started 10 years ago publishing quality books driving deep into computer technology related area both Open Source and proprietary. In this short span they have covered a very large area with an impressive portfolio.

 

To celebrate this milestone event, Packt is offering any book or, video for a deep discount price of $10. This offer ends on July 5. This is the best time to stock up, enjoy the 4th of July; the World Cup and the Wimbeldon but make sure you place your order.

Follow this link for details:
 http://bit.ly/1nXKH56

I started writing for Packt in 2007 and I have had a great time working with them and learning
along the way. This was my first book and it is still selling!

This is a great opportunity for you to explore what's new and what is cutting edge. There is something for everyone with titles numbering over 2000.

More information is available at www.packtpub.com/10years  
 

What is a Web App Template?

Web App Template takes your Web App as the core for a full featured Store App for Windows that includes versions 8 and 8.1. Jump start and  convert your website into a Windows Web App. Of course Windows Phone App is also possible if you download the phone related template.

It is implemented as a Visual Studio template that you can install as a one-click installer. With this installed you can create a project of type 'Web App template'. All you need to do is to make changes to the config file (in JSON format) with your application values and voila! you have a Store application. You must give Internet permissions to your app.

The Windows Store app is built during run time taking your Web App and the configuration data. This image is sourced from Microsoft Web Site.

The template allows you to add (or hide) the required items to perform as Store App embellishing with back button, navigation, Offline support etc. Your Web app will also be touch friendly & responsive giving it all the frills of a Store App.

These extra things can be added to make your web app as a full fledged store app.

• Back Buttons
• Nav Bar / App Bar
• Charm Integration
• Live Tiles
• Secondary Tiles
• Offline support
• Visual management
• URL Control
• Notifications
• Authentication Integration
• Logging and error handling
• etc.

Where do you get this template?

It is not part of the Visual Studio Express 2013 Windows Update 2 download. You need to bring it in separately. There are some requirements:
You need to have Visual Studio 2013  (Windows Store Express, Pro or Ultimate) or later and a machine or VM running Windows 8.1. The Windows Phone 8 template requires that you have the Windows Phone SDK or Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone.
You can install from here:
https://wat.codeplex.com/releases/view/120339

I could get the template installed and start working with it in VS2013 Express for Windows.

This informative video describes WebView in the context of a web application and the Web App Template.
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/Content/ViewContent.aspx?et=7106&m=7097&ct=26120

Look forward to more posts on this topic here: http://hodentek.blogspot.com

Universal Apps on Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1

This is a good video that you should review if you are either developing or working with Apps for the the new Windows 8.1 OS.

The video from Channel 9 touches upon many of the features of the Universal Apps and Kevin Gallo speaks from his experience using Surface Pro and Nokia 1020.

Universal apps have just one solution containing both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 projects sharing common code addressing hardware platforms with different foot prints, Windows
Phone, Surface and laptops.

The audio/video is  of good quality.  There are lots of related Q & A's.
The answers are quite focused such as,

-Supported languages JavaScript, C#, C++, C and VB.NET.
-Action Center
-Game development
-App migration
-Mix and match languages
-Leveraging legacy apps
-WinRT Broker
-DirectX with only C or C++ and no C#
and many more.

I hear in the video that you can create Universal apps using VB as well. However, Visual Studio does not seem to have a template to create one. Perhaps you may have to create one for yourself.

In the case of Universal Apps with Javascript you have the same .js file for both of Windows 8.1 apps and Windows Phone 8.1 apps. For other supported languages also a major portion of the code is shared.

 

There are some differences (version) in the WinJS script file sources for 'base' and 'ui' to address features special to the devices in their default.html pages.

Since the device foot prints are different; the package manifest are different requiring developers, for example, to tailor their graphics to suit the devices. Here there is a whole lot of icons to create which may be one of the time consuming tasks in development although some general recommendations are given.

It would have been nice if the develper supplied just one image (vector/SVG) and the program create required images from it without having have to create a number of images of different sizes and scale factors.
 

Creating a Azure Mobile Service application

This is quite easy as I am just describing a sample application on Windows Azure Mobile Services.

How to create a service?

Follow these links:

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/05/get-started-with-windows-azure-mobile.html
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2014/05/create-windows-azure-mobile-service-and.html

Now once you create a service, you would like to use it. How?

This post explains the process using a sample created by Microsoft.
------------------------------------------------------------
This application  follows the sample on Microsoft Azure Mobile Services. You can directly create the 'app' on Windows Azure Mobile Services portal. After you create the application you can download the code to your computer. You then open the application (the downloaded code) in Visual Studio 2013. The suggested version is the following:

http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs#d-express-windows-8

Note that although the URL above may suggest Windows 8, the page it takes you to is for Visual Studio Express 2013 with Update for Windows 8.

There was already installed on the machine the VS software with the following details:

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows

Version 12.0.30501.00 Update 2

Microsoft .NET Framework

Version 4.5.51641

Windows Azure Mobile Services Tools 1.1

Windows Azure Mobile Services Tools

The following pertains to the Sample App: TodoList

With this app you can add an entry (encrypted) to your Todo list maintained on your mobile services with a simple UI as shown:

When you run the downloaded application (as explained in this post) you will display the UI using the Simulator in VS2013.

You type in a Todoitem (whatever it is, it is of type 'text') and click Save

The added item appears with a checkbox under Query and Update Data

Place check mark and click Refresh

That is all it is designed to do.

How do you create this app?

In order to acomplish this, you should first login to your mobile service. My previous post shows how you can create a service for free(for now).

Here is where I start on my mobile service

Click on Name of service to display the following:

Click on CREATE A NEW WINDOWS STORE APP

The following page is displayed:

I did not get the tools as I already had one installed.

Go to Step 2 and create a table to store you todo list. Click on Create TodoItem Table. It creates a named table on the service. You don't see the table, though.

In Step 3, you can choose JavaScript or C#. I have tried both but the C# choice, when run, throws a bunch of exceptions. Herein follows after choosing JavaScript.

Click Download and you can download a zip pakage to your computer. Extract files and access the Visual Studio Solution from VS2013Express for Windows Update 2 (preferably with elevated permissions). I will discuss the details in my next post.

When you run the app you will see what was shown in my earlier screen shots.

Well if you can save todolist items to mobile service you can save Customer Info, Contact List, and Hobbies etc.

Now how does this look on the mobile service portal. This shows how it is entered.

You can create a new table here clicking on the Data tab of the mobile service as shown.

This is a Windows 8 App and you cannot deploy it to Windows Phone 8.1 although you can access the data on the mobile services using its URL.

　

　

　

Apple introduces SWIFT, a new programming language

It is a part of the Xcode IDE (now in beta) SWIFT is teh programming language for Cocoa frameworks of OS X and iOS. It is supposed to be very fastand designed for safety with lightning fast intractivity according to Apple.

It goes one step beyond Objective_C Apple's preferred language in terms of being light and agile.
This is what Apple says about SWIFT,

"Swift is an innovative new programming language for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch. Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C."

Read mode here:
https://developer.apple.com/swift/

You can download teh programming language from here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-swift-programming-language/id881256329?mt=11

It is safe as unsafe code is avoided at the outset by,

• Initializing variables before they are used
• Arrays and integers are checked for overflow
• Memory is managed automatically

Syntax is made easy by three character keywords

The speed comes about by using the high-performance LLVM compiler.

SWIFT code is transformed into optimized native code that can be used for any of Apple devices Mac, iPhone or iPad. Swift inherits the best of language features frrom C and Objective-C. It has obejct oriented features like classes, generics, etc.

With the release of iOS 8 and Yosemite later in the year SWIFT created apps can easily find their way to APP store and Mac App Store.

Is there a similarity of thought processes in  Apple and Microsoft. I would say yes.

With the release of Windows OS 8.1, Microsoft established one platform for both Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 App development and as this post is typed apps written for both from VS 2013 Update 2 are making their way to the Windows App Store.

Coffee, anybody with VS2013?

Coffee is perceived as an elegant programming language that compiles a script file with extension .coffee to a  Javascipt file (.js).  Bing it and you can find lot more references.

The Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Exprees for Web seems to include access to a new item with the extension .Coffee as shown here.

However it is not supported on Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Exprees for Web. It is supposed to work with extensions such as Web Essentials 2013 (free) which can be downloaded from here:
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/56633663-6799-41d7-9df7-0f2a504ca361

or using the Mindscape Web Workbench from here ( a free and not so free version):
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/2b96d16a-c986-4501-8f97-8008f9db141a

However, you cannot add these extensions to Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Exprees for Web.
I failed to install although I tried both. The last few lines of the installation log is reproduced here,

12/22/2013 1:33:17 PM - Microsoft VSIX Installer
12/22/2013 1:33:17 PM - -------------------------------------------
12/22/2013 1:33:17 PM - Initializing Install...
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM - Extension Details...
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  Identifier      : 5fb7364d-2e8c-44a4-95eb-2a382e30fec8
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  Name            : Web Essentials 2013
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  Author          : Mads Kristensen
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  Version         : 1.5
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  Description     : Adds many useful features to Visual Studio for web developers.
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  Locale          : en-US
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  MoreInfoURL     : http://vswebessentials.com/
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  InstalledByMSI  : False
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  SupportedFrameworkVersionRange : [4.5]
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  Supported Products :
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -   Microsoft.VisualStudio.Pro
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -    Version : [12.0]
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -  References      :
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -   -------------------------------------------------------
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -   Identifier   : Microsoft.VisualStudio.MPF.12.0
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -   Name         : Visual Studio MPF 12.0
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -   Version      : [12.0,13.0)
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -   MoreInfoURL  :
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -   Nested       : No
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM -
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM - Searching for applicable products...
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM - Found installed product - Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Shell - Integrated Mode
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM - Found installed product - Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM - Found installed product - Global Location
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM - Found installed prodsiouct - ssms
12/22/2013 1:33:18 PM - VSIXInstaller.NoApplicableSKUsException: This extension is not installable on any currently installed products.
   at VSIXInstaller.App.InitializeInstall()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.InnerInvoke()
   at System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Execute()
A similar install log was generated for the Mindscape Web Workbench.

I might have missed something, let me know if you succeeded.

Well, I have only the express edition, I go and get my coffee from somewhere else. Of course not, from Starbucks, coffee is way too much roasted for my taste.

Do you wish to work with Metro Style Apps?

Step 1: Install Windows 8 Enterprise.

Step 2: Download and Install VS2012 Express

Download from here to your Windows 8 Downloads folder.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516.aspx

Double click the executable in your download shown here:

Installation starts

You can proceed after agreeing to license terms.

You should get a Developer License. Read info on this modal window

It's easy to get a license.

From here you can Start a new project, Open an existing project etc.

You can use C# to develop your project.

These are the templates available out off the box. You can choose to develop with any of these.

If you prefer you can use JavaScript and HTML5

Or you can use Visual Basic if that is your strength.

OK, You can use C++

In each of these languages you have the choice to start from a Blank or use prefab templates.

I tried here to create an extremely simple APP using JavaScript that has ,

A splash screen

A button which when clicked changes the text in a textbox

A tool-tip that shows some text when you hover over the text box

A logo for the APP. The image for the logo (Copy right of Microsoft) I copied from the Windows 8 Screen and used it. The name of the APP is AppJayAug20. It's only on my local machine in test environment.

The default.html which has most of the stuff is here.

That's all folks.

Mahalo