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."

lame

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?

Re:lame

If you're not trolling, why post AC? Hell, why I am I responding?

Re:lame

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'?

Re:lame

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.

Re:lame

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.

Re:lame

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.

Re:lame

New Entry-level opportunity for a young, seasoned programmer in a fast-paced environment. Must have:

2 Years MS-SQL experience
3 Years in "M", 5 preferred
Pay negotiable.

They did

Why not clean up the fucking dotnet framework reference dlls?

You can download them here. [sun.com]

Re:lame

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.

Not a problem

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."

That's not a bug, that's a feature.

Cross platform? Bwahahaha

From TFA:

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.

Let me clarify that statement. By cross platform we mean that this is portable to both Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Vista.

Re:Cross platform? Bwahahaha

And not just Windows XP Vista - all three versions of XP and all eight versions of Windows Vista! Truly the broadest, deepest multiplatform support of any programming language available!

Re:Not a problem

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..

Re:Not a problem

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:Not a problem

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.

Not the current D

So apparently Microsoft tried to make their own "D" long ago and failed. It's not talking about the current D from Digital Mars. The article had me confused for a few minutes there.

That sound that you hear...

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

Re:That sound that you hear...

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."

Re:That sound that you hear...

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.

Re:That sound that you hear...

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.

Link to Register Article

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

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]

M has been an ISO and ANSI-standard language

...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.

Domain modeling environments

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 [intentsoft.com].

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 [msdn.com]

"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 [zdnet.com]

"'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."

Re:Nowhere for Big Bird to Go Now

Nope. The next languages will be "E", "R", "D" and back to "E" again.