A beautiful machine that I hope lives up to its potential.

Will you be providing async/await keyword support for your business objects?

Rocky - has your thought process changed from a few months back on what to use *now* for new LOB development? Is it still SL5? I read an older (March) post today by Josh Smith and while I disagree with the general sentiment expressed there about Windows 8 (I'm excited about it), I did see references to some suggesting WinForms or WPF over SL. I've heard your past arguments about preferring SL and they make sense to me. Just wondering if your opinion is still the same, or if it has changed to any degree. Thanks.

@aaron, yes - CSLA 4 version 4.5 currently supports async/await in the data portal for .NET, WinRT, and Silverlight 5.

We don't support it for WP7 or Android, because (to my knowledge) those platforms don't have the new async/await features.

@tim, the Magenic whitepaper on Win8 remains valid:

Windows 8 whitepaper

Silverlight is the closest thing to WinRT today. WPF is not bad, as long as you limit yourself to using only features of WPF/.NET that have analogs on WinRT.

Thanks, Rocky. Interestingly, I saw in the "technology comparison chart" at the end of that whitepaper that the "asp mvc" and "mobile enabled web apps" categories were separated out. Having been involved with a MVC 4.0/jQueryMobile POC the past month, it appears to me that with media queries, we can effectively reach desktop and mobile with one (for the most part) code-base. I know this is off-topic from your post on Win 8, but I would be curious why those are separated out. (Perhaps it is due to my still-very-limited understanding of ASP.NET MVC...)

@tim, we tend to look at these things as being separate in terms of focus.

ASP.NET MVC is a server technology that projects a lot of HTML and often some javascript - as a general rule.

A "web app", especially a mobile one, is a client-side app written in HTML and javascript, relying on the server for deployment and services, but not for traditional web server stuff.

So the skill set to build an ASP.NET MVC app is C#, ADO.NET EF, etc. Such a developer might dabble in javascript, but probably won't be an expert.

The skill set to build a mobile web app is javascript, jquery mobile, and various other mobile-focused javascript libraries. Such a developer might dabble in C#, but probably won't be an expert.

And yes, there's a lot of grey area in between these two positions, with people knowing more/less .NET or h5/js.

But after decades of being a developer and working with developers, I've become convinced that it is the _rare_ developer who can be a true expert on two completely disparate platforms such as .NET and h5/js. More can be competent, but not great. And most will be less than competent on at least one, if not both.

Does anyone know whether you need Windows 8 Pro to test metro apps targeting the WinRT? I know we have a few months before they become available, but if I purchase a Windows RT tablet instead of a Win Pro tablet, can I still test apps without going through the MS store?