I have to agree. I can understand if this thread was on reddit, but its disappointing to see this in HN.

That aside, isn't this a good thing that Windows 8 now doesn't care (at least, for the new Metro apps) what runtime you're targeting - Silverlight, .Net (full CLR) or Native? - all apps irrespective of whether it was developed in C++, C# or VB with XAML or JS with Html - they're targeted to run in the Windows runtime. For Silverlight developers, they can continue to use XAML for developing their UI's, but yes, they would have learn about the new/different UI controls for the metro style, but that's not the same as learning a completely different language.

Windows Runtime documentation - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh46494...

Edit - Added WinRT link