Project Roon ≡ A developer’s [mis] take? ≡ Giles Smith

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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 ‘M’ (for Microsoft?).

The new language is to be a part of Microsoft’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 are claiming the new language will be completely cross platform, but with a little catch. Microsoft won’t be building the back end for any other platforms and the database used must by MS SQL. Well I suppose that for Microsoft that is a large step in the right direction!

A testing preview should be released this month at the Microsoft Professional Developers’ Conference, but there is no word on a final release date. I would guess it’s going to be included with Visual Studio 2010, so some time next year.

The language should be geared towards Object Oriented Programmers however its reliance on MS SQL and .net is hardly going to make it very attractive to open source developers, whom Microsoft seem to be making an attempt to please recently.

The name makes me a little suspicious here, is this just Microsoft trying to get hold of a slightly more funky image? Well I guess we will find out when programmers start using it, you never know ‘M’ might even be part of Microsoft’s vision to finally see off C.

Tags: .net, c, m, microsoft, ms sql, object oriented, oslo, quadrant, sql, xaml

Categories: IT, Tech & Internet