The book is great! It's clear and easy to read with loads of examples that showed my students
what to do. -- Larry Snyder Emeritus Professor University of Washington Department of
Computer Science and Engineering Having the TouchDevelop book available made our events so much
easier. Students could figure things out for themselves with help from the book. -- Jennifer
Marsman Microsoft Principal Developer Evangelist Mobile devices such as smartphones and
tablets are set to become the main computers that virtually all people will own and carry with
them at all times. And yet mobile devices are not yet used for all computing tasks. A project
at Microsoft Research was created to answer a simple question: It is possible to create
interesting apps directly on a smartphone or tablet without using a separate PC or a keyboard?
The result is TouchDevelop a programming environment that runs on all modern mobile devices
such as Windows Phone iPhone iPad Android phones and tablets and also on PCs and Macs. This
book walks you through all of the screens of the TouchDevelop app and it points out
similarities and differences of the TouchDevelop language compared to other programming
languages. For users the book can serve as a handyreference next to the phone. The book
systematically addresses all programming language constructs starting from the very basic
constructs such as variables and loops. The book also explores many of the phone sensors and
data sources which make creating apps for mobile devices so rewarding. If you are new to
programming with TouchDevelop or if you have not yet worked on touchscreen devices we suggest
that you read the book starting from Chapter 1. If you are already familiar with the basic
paradigm of the TouchDevelop programming environment then feel free to jump ahead to the later
chapters that address particular topic areas. This book is written from the perspective of a
person developing their code using a web browser. The TouchDevelop Web App runs in many modern
browsers on many different devices including smartphones and tablets Macs PC. All screenshots
and navigation instructions refer to the TouchDevelop Web App running in a browser. For Windows
Phone there is a dedicated TouchDevelop app in the Windows Phone Store which gives access to
many more sensors and data sources. Starting with the TouchDevelop app v3.0 for Windows Phone 8
the phone app will share the same look and navigation structure and all features of the Web
App.
