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Microsoft's New Programming Language, "M"

Posted by timothy on from the well-it-sounds-delicious dept.

Anthony_Cargile writes "Microsoft announced Friday their new 'M' language, designed especially for building textual domain-specific languages and software models with XAML. Microsoft will also announce Quadrant, for building and viewing models visually, and a repository for storing and combining models using a SQL Server database. While some say the language is simply their 'D' language renamed to a further letter down the alphabet, the language is criticized for lack of a promised cross-platform function because of its ties to MS SQL server, which only runs on Windows."

11 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    great. another language to learn that is completely useless and no one will use.. And I'm not trolling, this glut of languages is fucking ridiculous. Why not clean up the fucking dotnet framework reference dlls?

    1. Re:lame by encoderer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You are trolling. If you weren't you'd have no need to try to disclaim it.

      There's no such thing as too many languages.

      From a programmers perspective the more the market fragments the more opportunity for specialized knowledge that increases your market value.

      And it seems you don't really understand the idea of M. This is not a general purpose language.

      So your post is like saying "iPod? Great. Another computer to buy that is useless and no one will use. This glut of computers is fucking ridiculous. Why not make x86 boot quickly instead?"

      The iPod is a specialized computer for a specialized task. Just like M.

    2. Re:lame by darkpixel2k · · Score: 5, Insightful

      does it really bother you that someone, somewhere just went 'yes, this is perfect for me'?

      Yeah--because they are probably wrong.
      My company gets all the Microsoft development tools for free.

      With those tools, we build things like Contact management systems, inventory applications, and websites.

      We then turn around and sell them to customers. Customers love the price, but then later realize that they must buy a server to run in on, a copy of Windows, a server to run SQL on, a copy of Microsoft SQL Server, licenses, licenses to allow 'anonymous' internet connections, copies of Microsoft Office 2007 to be able to read the reports it spits out in Word 2007 format, etc...

      ...and the price balloons by thousands of dollars.

      When I develop applications, I don't go looking for the tools that make my life the easiest--I go looking for the tools that will make the end-user's life easier. I develop in languages that work across multiple platforms (except for the abomination that is Java).

      Microsoft tools are awesome if you're a developer. They make pumping out applications and websites easy...unless you want to use non-microsoft technologies...or want to save money...or have one of those stubborn Mac users that won't switch to windows ;)

      In other words, if you want to be locked into using and paying extortionate fees for Microsoft technologies until the end of time, go ahead. Use Visual Studio. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

      --
      There's no place like ::1 (I've completed my transition to IPv6)
    3. Re:lame by darkpixel2k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The iPod is a specialized computer for a specialized task. Just like M.

      Yeah.
      M helps you reach your goal of being completely locking in your company to Microsoft products.
      The iPod just plays music.

      --
      There's no place like ::1 (I've completed my transition to IPv6)
    4. Re:lame by darkpixel2k · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, your doing real justice with your customer's. This is another M$ proprietary thing. And then you have the gall to mention Unix.

      What you just said made absolutely no sense...
      On top of that, nowhere did I say 'Unix', 'Linux' or anything remotely like it.

      Are you on drugs, or just a moron?

      --
      There's no place like ::1 (I've completed my transition to IPv6)
    5. Re:lame by gbjbaanb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Putting the end user first is an admirable but misplaced sentiment.

      The customer is always right. They pay your salary.

      You can continue to put yourself first, but you may find your more customer-focussed competitors do rather better than you.

      PS. most business apps are still MS-based, and Java is an increasingly irrelevent tech on Windows. MS is making sure of that by pulling developers to .Net as fast as they can.

  2. That sound that you hear... by zappepcs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is the sound of a company dieing ... seriously. Yes, there will be those that call this post a troll, but look at the facts. What new product has MS announced that was not met with criticism and derision? What have they done in the last 5 years that improved the personal computing world? World leaders they no longer are. The MS way of doing things is no longer the ONLY way to do things.

    The more they try to launch products which are locked into their own ecosystem, the more people laugh. There are entire countries that have rejected MS products, never mind the users who do so on their own. When entire countries and industries reject your products you have a serious problem. MS has not and is not addressing that problem. They seem to be blindly going down the same road that led to this situation without concern for how they will make money in the next decade.

    It amounts to basically a rotting corpse on the sidewalk with a beggars cup held out. That is just my opinion, and it stems from the lack of anything good or beneficial coming from MS. YMMV

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    1. Re:That sound that you hear... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, to be fair, a lot of organizations and governments that have "rejected" Microsoft products did so only to win a better deal. Some have managed to go with Linux or some other OS, but most have ended up back in Microsoft's hands (albeit with a substantial discount.)

      Ha ... captcha is "pathetic."

    2. Re:That sound that you hear... by mindstormpt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      is the sound of a company dieing ... seriously. Yes, there will be those that call this post a troll, but look at the facts. What new product has MS announced that was not met with criticism and derision? What have they done in the last 5 years that improved the personal computing world?

      Windows Home Server actually received pretty good reviews, and it can be considered an improvement (mainly in the ease of use) on the current (non-geek) home server scene - the non-existing one that is. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'm looking forward to it (and no, I'm not a fanboy, I actually run 3 servers at home: windows, linux and freebsd).

      Then there's Microsoft Research, which actually comes up with some great stuff, though most of it is not (yet) implementable on a commercial scale.

      So I'll call your post a troll. That's just my opinion too.

    3. Re:That sound that you hear... by pieisgood · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know about you, but I would consider the Xbox 360 a rather large success for Microsoft. The 360 game pad? Best, in my opinion, on any system. Windows XP? Seems to be doing fairly well from my perspective. Adobe creating new products that give Windows an advantage over OSX because of hardware compatibility and support? That seems to be good for Microsoft. Certainly, Microsoft isn't doing them selves any favors, not until windows 7 is released with actual improvements. But, Software developers are developing for windows and continuing to keep Microsoft in a comfortable zone of Operating system dominance. TL;DR Microsoft isn't going anywhere.

      --
      Eat sleep die
    4. Re:That sound that you hear... by Malevolyn · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hell their are still trolls that tout Vista as a failure even though it has 10 times the market share of OS.X and a 100 times the market share of desktop linux and makes them BILLIONS.

      Market share != quality.

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