TouchDevelop is a programming environment hosted in the cloud and accessible via mobile devices that enables the creation of scripts for mobile devices that access the cloud. TouchDevelop has four main components:
1. A cloud back-end that enables a social approach to software development, connecting programmers and their users.
2. A browser-hosted mobile integrated development environment for creating and maintaining scripts that execute across a variety of devices.
3. A statically typed scripting language with novel abstractions to support stateless reactive graphical user interfaces (boxes) and replicated data for social applications (cloud types).
4. A set of high-level APIs to make it easy to access device sensors/resources and services.
There will be several opportunities for audience participation in this talk; audience members are encouraged to bring their favorite mobile device, be it a smartphone, tablet or laptop and to visit www.touchdevelop.com/app before the talk. TouchDevelop is the work of a team at Microsoft Research including Judith Bishop, Sebastian Burckhardt, Peli de Halleux, Michal Moskal, and Nikolai Tillman.