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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."
The M language was standardized under that name around 1993 - 1995. Prior to that the language was known as MUMPS, which is an acronym for Massachusetts (General Hospital) Utility Muli Programming System, and goes back to 1967. Which makes it older than Unix. It is a language designed primarily for hospital related work. The US Veterans Administration was an early adopter, and has done a lot to promote MUMPS/M development.
I don't know what it is with Microsoft, but they keep stealing names that have been in extensive use in the Veterans Administration. Vista is the name of the interface that the VA put on its integrated software around 1995: it includes a Delphi front end that was first implemented on WinNT before even Win98 saw the light of day. The VA Vista was the first successful attempt to integrate all the various information systems a modern healthcare system needs, and by several measures it remains the most successful one. I was disappointed when Microsoft decided to call its newest OS by that name since I think that VA Vista deserves recognition on its merits, not obfuscation by what has turned out to be one biggest software duds ever.
I am really disappointed that Microsoft chose to call their product the M Language. Can they not google a simple name collision check?
Oh wait,,, I suppose they have to rely on their own search engine, huh?
Is Microsoft going to implement MUMPS, s database-driven programming language which was renamed to M to avoid using the trademark from Mass General Hospital from which MUMPS was originated, or in the alternative is this yet another case of Microsoft co-opting a name that was already in use by someone else and figuring, if they can't get away with it, they can buy their way (or maybe not even have to buy, as has been noted in this thread) out of it, like when they used the name "Internet Explorer" for their web browser, only to end up having to buy the name from a company that was previously using it for another purpose?
I suspect the latter.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
AKA the itanic?