How is developing apps for Windows Phone 8 is different from Windows Phone 7.x?

Question

What has changed with regards to the design patterns? Do both use the same development techniques? If I'm faced with the option of learning Windows Phone 7 vs Windows Phone 8 will learning windows phone 7 will qualify me for directly start development for windows phone 8?

Answer 1

Yes, the development skills are definitely transferrable. The biggest difference is that the emulator now runs on top of Hyper-V and is as a result a lot faster. The tooling is still .NET & XAML based, however WP8 prefers the use of C# + XAML i.e. WinRT than Silverlight, with Silverlight 5 being the last planned version.

For a list of all new development changes, look at the Microsoft release notes at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj206940(v=vs.105).aspx

If you persevere with learning WP7 you will find it a lot easier to pick up WP8.