14th October 2008 by 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 •
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15th May 2007 by Giles Smith
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Introduction
“True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.” (Winston Churchill)
In PHP, unlike many other languages, you can choose between using an object oriented (OO) or a procedural approach. Most PHP programmers use a procedural approach by default, since web pages themselves operate in a very procedural way (this tag, then this tag, then this tag). Interspersing procedural code with HTML is more straightforward, and so PHP programmers often develop their own style, based on this approach.
If you are new to PHP, procedural programming is probably the only kind of programming you are familiar with. However, if you have been exploring the PHP community for best practices, by now you have probably seen posts in forums and newsgroups about “object bloat”. You have probably also seen tutorials on how to write object oriented code in PHP. You may have downloaded libraries that employ classes, and learned to instantiate their objects and use their methods. Yet it is quite possible that you have never really understood when, where, or why it is appropriate to use an object oriented approach.
There is a certain amount of ranting on both sides of the issue, and slogans such as “Objects are bad!” or “Objects are good!” are sometimes heard. This article does not attempt to decide between the two approaches and come up with a single “best practice”, but to explore the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Tags: object oriented, php, procedural, programming
Categories: IT, Tech & Internet •
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