On Facebook I wrote a bunch of thoughts on the fact that Windows 8 treats JavaScript as a first-class citizen for native Metro apps. It was triggered by this and a few other related reads on WinJS.

In general, there is value in having a single language available for all your needs and platforms even if it’s not 100% portable (look at C/C++). JavaScript is the most widely available language today and, while ugly, the popularity of runtimes like NodeJS and the myriad HTML5 mobile app wrappers like PhoneGap prove that it is viable.

But what’s the value for Microsoft? Is this WinJS effort going to encourage devs to port their web apps easily into native Win versions? I think that’s just not very likely, most devs will settle with just a web app (e.g. Trello), and very successful web apps will get native versions regardless (e.g. Evernote).

I can’t help but think that the effort would have been better spent developing a hassle-free PhoneGap-for-Metro kind of wrapper rather than a close-but-not-quite web-like native environment that developers still need to treat like a port and a separate platform.