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Two New Microsoft Languages - AsmL and Pan

Posted by timothy on from the wonder-if-they'll-open-the-source dept.

AlphaAlien (from neonerds.net) writes: "Another Microsoft Programming Language -- AsmL. AsmL is the Abstract State Machine Language. It is an executable specification language based on the theory of Abstract State Machines. AsmL allows you to test incomplete code due to it being executable on the fly. This doesn't mean it'll execute invalid code though, only that you can execute code segments for instant experimentation (similar to the test-debug function in Visual Studio, but more flexible/powerful). In case you're not tired of all these new Microsoft languages, here's another, Pan. Pan is an experimental embedded language and compiler for image synthesis and manipulation, based on principles from functional programming. The Pan compiler turns descriptions of images and image effects into efficient machine code for use with either a stand-alone program, DirectXTransform for web-page embedding (viewable with IE 5.5 or later), or as a PhotoShop plug-in for use with hosts like Adobe PhotoShop and JASC PaintShop Pro (has only been tested with latter at this point, but should work with former)." You can download Pan from here.

2 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Now for an hour through the research site. by penguin_punk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thanks to whoever posted those links to the research site over at M$.

    A few notes from the past half-hour:

    PAN is old. The fricking code was last updated 2 years ago. I've seen that page before. 2 YEARS AGO.

    anyways. here's another note.

    http://research.microsoft.com/~dbwilson/ -- this guy's pretty funny as far as Microsoft goes. He's releasing some stuff under the GPL on Microsoft's server, as well as linking to GNU Emacs for Windows. I think he deserves a raise.

    --
    HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
  2. Image description language... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Pan seems like M$'s latest attempt to again catch up to the Open Source community. For way cool graphics that you can animate, script against, port to any platform and easily manipulate in your code try SVG (scaleable vector graphics) It is also supported by adobe. This is an xml based standard that is easy to use, easy to manipulate, and offers the best of flash plus named vector graphics.

    For more information see W3C's SVG web site

    for useage of SVG see: The Apache batik project

    There is also an excelent O'Reilly book by J. David Eisenberg

    If you truly want to be on the cutting edge of graphics then you should look into SVG.

    Sgis

    "Truth is a personal pronoun." (john 14:4)