1. I had no idea you could make native Windows Phone apps in HTML. This may be a failing on my part for having less than zero interest in Windows Phone (though I find my dislike of Microsoft has faded quite a bit, as they've embraced more openness and more fair dealings with the rest of the world).
2. I don't think we mean the same thing when I say "the primary way to develop apps for the platform". I googled "how to develop windows phone apps" and followed the trail to the most obvious seeming instructions, and found this in the Microsoft Dev Center:
"When you create a new project, you also make the following selections:
Your preferred programming language - Visual C#, Visual Basic, or Visual C++."
So, if JavaScript+HTML5 is a good, and "official", way to make apps for Windows Phone, somebody needs to tell Microsoft, because they don't seem to realize it.
"Get started with Windows Runtime apps. You can write a Windows Runtime app in a variety of languages, such as C# or C++ with XAML, C++ with DirectX, and JavaScript with HTML/CSS. Now you can easily create apps for Windows devices and Windows Phone from a single project."
Taken from https://dev.windows.com/en-us/getstarted
Free trainings and ebooks:
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/deve...
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2012/10/29/f...
I like JavaScript just fine for what it was originally designed for.
It has been possible to write fully native (not webview wrappers) Windows Phone apps in HTML and JavaScript for the last four or so years, but web developers didn't really adopt the platform (and those that did primarily used C# and XAML). You can scoff that it was something to do with Windows Phone OS's abysmal market share but then I don't see how you would be able to draw a different conclusion that FFOS will fare any better.