Microsoft's New Programming Language, "M" 334
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."
Not the current D (Score:5, Informative)
Story Mirror (Score:2, Informative)
In a software-centric world where we already have many, many languages to program in, from scripting to bytecode compiled languages, to frameworks on top of languages and embedded languages, now Redmond wants to bring ANOTHER language to the table, titled âMâ(TM) (for Microsoft?).
The new language is to be a part of Microsoftâ(TM)s new Oslo development and service-oriented strategy, incorporating features from XAML while being textual and domain-specific. M is to be used directly with 2 other components to be released with M along with Visual Studio 2010: Quadrant, a tool for building models visually, and a repository for storing and viewing models in an SQL database.
Microsoft has not said much other than that about the new language, but it will presumably be a compiled
By âoecross platformâ, Microsoft means, âoecross platform as long the other platform authors write a backend for the code, and the SQL database MUST be hosted on MS SQL, a proprietary Microsoft Windows serviceâ. It makes perfect sense for being cross platform, if you are Microsoft and trying to purchase many copies of Windows (therefore generating revenue, and presumably the version is Vista or win2k8 since XP is out).
Another source says the language is actually their âDâ(TM) language, only revamped to fit into their new Oslo modeling strategy and renamed to a further letter down the alphabet to attract new interest in an old product. While this may be mostly true, D, which was never really promoted as a
The fundamentals and principals of the language are attractive, especially for OOP, but its ties to MS SQL and
Time will only tell how many will actually use the language outright before Microsoft finds a way to force programmers to use it, most likely by dropping support for some features in all languages except M to promote its usage. For now it appears that the only âoenon-visualâ C/C++ code encouraged for usage with Windows by Microsoft is in fact Windows itself, given the fact that Microsoftâ(TM)s programmers are on Microsoftâ(TM)s payroll. But if all newbie programmers learn these new languages, who will manage the billions of lines of C and C++ we currently use in the future, unless it is implied to be completely be rewritten? Iâ(TM)m sure the folks from the original Bell labs team would be interested in the answer to these questions as well.
Gotta love the slashdot effect.
Link to Register Article (Score:4, Informative)
TFA was low on info and high on bias. The Register article is a little better. I couldn't quickly find any Microsoft release on the matter:
The Register [theregister.co.uk]
Actually, there already is a language called M (Score:4, Informative)
The Mumps Language was re-designated as the M language a number of
years ago. While Mumps isn't as widely used as some others, perhaps
the people in Redmond should do a literature search before they
name things.
see:
http://math-cs.cns.uni.edu/~okane/mumps.html [uni.edu]
http://www.cs.uni.edu/~okane/ [uni.edu]
Re:Actually, there already is a language called M (Score:2, Informative)
see also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS [wikipedia.org]
Re:More people should use D. (Score:3, Informative)
I think the article is talking about a different D programming language, not the one from Digital Mars.
TFA wasn't a FA (Score:2, Informative)
Thanks for the link, that was a much better article. But most Slashdotters will prefer the less informative, more biased original chosen for featuring here. In fact, you can find way better articles just googling "programming language m oslo quadrant" than the blog post featured here. But his blog does have a neat look.
Sorry Microsoft, the name "M" is already taken (Score:3, Informative)
And it's been taken [wikipedia.org] since 1984.
Re:That sound that you hear... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
OK I'll bite, yes you are nothing but a troll. There market dominance is increasing in the server space and so is their profitability. Trolls like you only look at the bad stuff which any company that releases dozens of products a year will have, it is part of the business model. 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.
recent stuff that doesn't suck and is making them BILLIONS.
Sharepoint
Performance Point
SQL Server 2008
Visual Studio 2008
Windows Server 2008
their upcoming TMG server
Xbox 360
Windows Live Mesh
Do they make stuff that sucks, Sure. But that is far and away outweighed by the stuff that rocks and makes them billions.
Re:That sound that you hear... (Score:3, Informative)
is the sound of a company dieing
Oh, my eyes. It's spelled dying.
Re:Not a problem (Score:4, Informative)
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..
Hey,
It originated as a re-engineering of C++, but even though it is predominantly influenced by that language, it is not a variant of C++. D has redesigned some C++ features and has been influenced by concepts used in other programming languages, such as Java, C# and Eiffel. A stable version, 1.0, was released on January 2, 2007.
Here's a little explanation taken from wikepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_programming_language [wikipedia.org] more info can be found on http://www.digitalmars.com/d [digitalmars.com] Good luck!
Re:lame (Score:1, Informative)
Or you can sling coffee @ Charbucks and make the same pay
M has been an ISO and ANSI-standard language (Score:5, Informative)
...for decades. It has been an official alternate name for MUMPS, ANSI standard X11.1, since 1995, while MUMPS itself goes back to 1966. It has been available for virtually every important platform, including but certainly not limited to Windows, for decades. I believe it is still the programming language used by the Veterans Administration. It is the foundation of Intersystem's corporations Cache development platform, and a (much-modified) form of it underlies the product line of Medical Information Technology (Meditech).
Meditech's revenues are something in the range of $350 million, Intersystems' were about $140 million in 2003. That ain't Microsoft but that ain't hay, either.
Regardless of what the legal rights and wrongs might be--I'm not sure whether the ISO and ANSI standards are still current--it just arrogant and tacky and lame for Microsoft to have appropriated this well-established, decades-old language name, particularly when they're so pugnacious about defending their own rights to an ordinary English plural noun.
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Informative)
That's a different D.
Microsoft's D is "a new declarative programming language [...] that is expected to serve as a textual modeling language that will let business managers and non-technical stakeholders manipulate digital assets."
(http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/58675/)
Re:lame (Score:1, Informative)
This isn't another programming language per se, its a modelling tool. The next level of abstraction, if you will of seperating logic from entities. Models will it appears be described in a dialect of XAML (the M specification, similar to XOML for WF I guess). The languages was developed internally under the code name "D" for Declarative but once it was found that the name was taken it got renamed to "M" for Model(ling).
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Informative)
Ahem, no.
There's more than one programming language called D.
There's Digital Mars D, which is what you describe. And there's Microsoft D, which is almost, but not quite, completely unlike Digital Mars D.
Re:lame (Score:3, Informative)
The iPod just plays music
Yeah, right. And how do you get that music onto the iPod? Oh yeah, you need to install iTunes (which is terrible software, btw)... and what is iTunes except a foot in the door for the whole Apple(tm) lifestyle?
Yeah, I can see how that is totally different to getting locked into Microsoft products.
Re:lame (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That sound that you hear... (Score:3, Informative)
I'll have to stick with the other replies and state that I can't predict what they'll be doing for the next 10 and a half years.
I can however show you 3 ideas, notable for different reasons:
- Singularity, for its managed approach to the OS core
- ClearType, not because it's a huge innovation but because it's really in use
- Photosynth, for the wow factor
They have a a few hundred publications, most of which are outside my research area and probably beyond my comprehension. Since they had more papers accepted to SIGGRAPH than anyone else, it being the most prestigious CG conference, I'd guess they're actually doing some real research on that field.
Re:Is that a fact? (Score:2, Informative)
ok probably MS is not dying but I do think you are trolling here: .NET and C# probably you are right,
MS Ofiice not so much, mostly bad press for the ribbon thing
Vista, could you say how is gaining acceptance, again MS allowed OEMs to preinstall XP
IE7, you must be joking, the most stupid interface I have ever seen and speed - not so much
Windows CE has recently been surpassed in market share by RIM - which is probably right because it mostly sucks as a phone OS anyways