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Microsoft's New Programming Language, "M"
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."
It's almost the only thing the article mentions, you can't go more than three paragraphs before you get "MS sucks the tied D with MSSQL server". I would be interested in knowing what D is. Is there someone with a good article about M or D if that's what it is?
fanboy central here we come..
The 360 game pad really is very nice, but the D-pad is horrid. They need to improve it.
All said, I think MS is a pretty good company that has a ton of promise. The problem is they need to be broken up. They're like Sony was a few years ago (things have improved, a little)... they have no direction.
MS already have enough of their own languages (VB.net and C#), as well as others coming soon (F#), a shell they're inventing (PowerShell / Monad). They have interesting research products but they don't tend to make it to consumers most of the time.
MS has too much money to throw at projects like this that probably aren't that necessary. Some products linger around for years without enough help (Windows XP), many are constantly delayed (Vista was, we'll see it again). If the Mac Business Unit didn't release something named Office, you'd never know it was related to the "real" Office because the release schedules are so incredibly far apart.
If MS were split into a few little companies (maybe all under one big umbrella company) that could really make 'em fight against each other to prove how good they are, I think they could seriously improve their image.
I don't think Microsoft will last in it's current form. Something will have to change. A major strategy shift, a giant re-org, a slice across the product line (was having 7 different versions of Vista really a good idea?). Something will happen.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
which parts need cleaned up?
they are all pretty consistent across the board.
and who cares how many languages there are. each one fits a different purpose, whether they are small niches or big sweeping frameworks like Java, does it really bother you that someone, somewhere just went 'yes, this is perfect for me'?
Oslo and M appear to be taking a page out of the research Charles Simonyi has been doing at Microsoft, before leading to develop and advanced form of the technology at his own company Intentional Software.
The basic idea here is that any bigger project can be made more maintainable and flexible at the same time, if the deveopers create a domain specific model for the given task, and let the end-users (for example accountants, drug store chemists, biologists, business owners) model the concrete behaviour of the application by manipulating that simplified and specialized language, often visually, the way an UML diagram or a spreadsheet works.
Unfortunately the linked article offers a little more than the usual "LOL, Microsoft sucks!" rant, which is somewhat expected from a blog where the iMac keyboard and iPhone are used as "design elements".
Anyway, I'd say this should be watched as it can mean model languages will finally enter mainstream, something that's been years in the making.
Related articles:
http://blogs.msdn.com/wenlong/archive/2008/09/07/net-4-0-wf-wcf-and-oslo.aspx
"By mentioning model-driven programming, you will see a general modeling platform to be unveiled at PDC: Oslo. As Doug said, Oslo contains three simple things: a visual tool helps building models, a new textual DSL language helps defining models, and a relational repository that stores models. XAML represented workflows and services are special models in this domain. Check for more details in the postings from Doug and Don."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1430
"'Schemas in the repository can be defined using this language, but they dont have to be,' Chappell said. Developers can still use any other tools with which theyd be comfortable to create schemas instead. Because the new language will generate SQL, and the repository can be accessed using standard SQL, no special languages will be required."
It's been "already taken" multiple times, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(disambiguation)#Computing
Why not fork?
There was a lot of new tech in the last couple of .net releases - and unfortunately they are all not in sync at all.
It's no big deal, anytime that much new comes out in so many areas it takes a while to get them synced, but it's a little chaotic now.
Specifically; new GUI paradigm (XAML/WPF/Silverlight) and new Data Access (LINQ) - the standard collections don't have INotifyPropertyChange support across the board, SortedCollections are hit and miss, just in general I have found that interfaces needed for one new component is not well implemented for other new components. Like I said, just a bit of growing pains, but it needs attention.
But I'll agree it has nothing to do with a new language being introduced. I doubt if that will have any affect one way or the other.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
Yeah--because they are probably wrong.
They are wrong. The last thing we need is another programming language tied to a specific platform.
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...
Exactly why we opted out of the whole Microsoft environment, at least on the server and desktop side of the house. We have a couple Windows clients floating around with the sales staff but those are laptops that came with it.
Instead of constantly serving the MS machine, we can focus on working. If we need capacity, we just stand it up. New servers go in for the cost of the hardware. I don't consider myself stubborn, just practical. I'd rather focus on work than spend time keeping up the MS all-singing, all-dancing, constantly changing development environment. All the time you spend keeping up on security patches, learning new languages, hunting through the knowledge base, re-writing stuff the new framework broke...it's just nuts. You'd be amazed how productive you can be when you strip all the MS process out of your environment.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage