From the article:
Quote:
The WinRT name stands for "Windows Runtime." However, this isn't a runtime in the same way that Microsoft's .NET Runtime was a runtime, or the way Oracle's Java Runtime Environment is a runtime. In the .NET and Java cases, the runtime is a relatively large software component that provides a virtual machine environment, garbage-collected memory, various kinds of code safety verification, and more. The .NET and Java runtimes are intimately involved in virtually everything a .NET or Java program does, providing extensive infrastructure to software developers.
WinRT offers nothing quite like those runtimes. WinRT is a set of software libraries that provides an API offering a range of services—graphics, networking, storage, printing. In addition to this, there is a relatively small infrastructural component.
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That's why I and most developers twitch at the "RT" ... its another fine case of Microsoft not quite using a term right (which dates all the way back to their misuse of words they borrowed from the original X-windows environment and its cousins).
It wasn't a bad article (though I've lived through the whole history so no new news), it was fluffier than I'd expect from Ars Tech.
This article about exactly WHERE the API libraries they're calling "RT" sits in the stack tier is a fun read.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/...-to-redo/10736