Though its existence is still unconfirmed, users have expressed strong opinions for and against Microsoft's reported efforts to create a new data-centric programming language.
Citing sources close to Microsoft, reports earlier in the month suggested that the company is developing a functional programming language -- rumored to be named X# -- that would be optimized to handle data rather than objects, making XML easier to work with. Microsoft declined comment for this story.
Bryan Kowalchuk, the chief technology officer for CLN Highlander Inc. in Toronto, said X# would be "great" for making it easier to work with XML documents in standard programming environments.
"It seems the [Document] Object Model makes the simplest tasks difficult, while some of the most difficult tasks are easy," Kowalchuk said. "This can be extremely frustrating. Hopefully, X# would solve those problems, making it much easier to manipulate XML documents."
William York, an Irving, Texas-based Web developer, said he likes the idea, as long as the language is used to decouple objects and data from their access interfaces. He said an object graph for metadata-based services to be optimized into its own language may mean stronger backing for concepts like fuzzy object graphs and case-based reasoning engines.
Dennis "DZ" Zweigle, a developer with AppsChannel Inc. in Tulsa, Okla., said such a language would be a good idea, but selling it to change-resistant developers may not be
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"If a new concept doesn't cover every issue [or] passion a technologist believes is important to them, then two things happen," Zweigle said. "One, the technologist can beat their chest and tell the world how smart they are based on some obscure practice, or two, they are no longer the expert and they have to go learn something [else]."
Rick Hogenmiller, a senior consultant for NextGen Information Services Inc. in St. Louis, said he doesn't see the need for an entirely new language.
"Why wouldn't they just add special data-handling classes to C# for the XML functionality?" Hogenmiller said. "Of course, I didn't see the need to create a new language called C# when there was an open object-oriented language like Java already available for use."
He added that, under certain circumstances, the language might have value. Developers would benefit, for instance, if the language could be integrated with or invoked from traditional programming environments and not limited to one vendor's platform.
Marty Boggan, an independent consultant based in Las Colinas, Texas, said data should be encapsulated in objects because the industry is now committed to object-based development.
"On the other hand, there might be some advantages to addressing data directly. But what's the point? It becomes yet another messy detail to deal with," Boggan said.
Ronald Schmelzer, founder and senior analyst with ZapThink LLC, a research firm in Waltham, Mass., said it's difficult to take sides when nobody knows what the language will be like, or if it will ever take shape. However, he said that there is an industry-wide demand for easier XML processing.
"You need a new class of language that treats XML as something you want to process in context, where if you process a certain part, you know what its parents' nodes are and what its children's nodes are, but you don't necessarily need to know the rest of the document to process that node," Schmelzer said.
Schmelzer said that supporting data rather than objects would be a drastic change for the industry's major platform vendors, especially for Java-centric companies like Sun Microsystems and BEA Systems Inc., but a language like X# could have value for them in the context of scripting.
While some believe Microsoft's Visual FoxPro -- a relational database with an object-oriented programming environment -- can already do much of what a new programming language would do, Schmelzer said Microsoft may want to use a new language as a way to expand its developer base.
"The question is, is Microsoft going after a new developer audience, and do they want to turn some business analysts into XML developers? FoxPro would be great for some of this," said Schmelzer, "but there's a limited universe of [FoxPro developers], and maybe an X# would be embedded with all its products."
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