That Microsoft was going to increase support for dynamic languages is no surprise: they've been talking about that since (at least) PDC '03 and various hires and initiatives have clearly been in the works. I haven't seen the DLR yet, but my big question is: what version / runtime / patch level of the CLR  and libraries becomes the lowest-common denominator for Silverlight (i.e., cross-platform, in the browser)? Because for better or worse, that becomes the platform for dynamic languages in the .NET world.

I am surprised by the IronRuby announcement (and officially bestow the He-Man Programming Award to John Lam). I really thought we were going to see some form of Ruby#:Ruby::C#:Java. Although I'm happy (Ruby is now my #1 administrative programming language), I was actually hoping to see a new language. Ruby's a fine language, but it doesn't have a good story for concurrence, it has a boring model of XML (unlike VB), it has some unattractive Perl-isms. Most importantly, I think MS does a good job when they have the flexibility to evolve the language and, simultaneously, can devote the resources to developing the compilers, libraries, and toolsets.

Pete Wright, whose TabletPC Sudoku program was "shot in the head" by Microsoft's surprise release of their own version (join the group, Pete!), has ended his long relationship with MS consulting in order to fully embrace a job working with Ruby on Rails. His post is obviously cathartic, but he echoes the not-uncommon sentiment that within the Ruby community one is more likely to encounter passionate, involved people.

This is only true because Ruby is still at the "enthusiasts" place in the adoption curve. Once upon a time, the passionate people were embracing Java and VB: the languages that Pete now associates with drones. If Ruby crosses the chasm, it, too, will eventually become the domain of boring people.

Eric Gunnerson, discussing "Why so many languages?" makes the key point that "Compactness and simplicity have big benefits as well in programming languages."

Once upon a time, I made a good living teaching Java. Sometimes I taught it to C and C++ developers, sometimes I taught it to COBOL developers. One way or the other, in a week you could really deliver value: if people understood imperative structured code, you could really move them towards an understanding of object-oriented programming in just a week. Same for C# 1.0.

Even so, you had to talk about "well, not everything's an object," and deal with function-call semantics and equivalence and so forth. Personally, I think that the inclusion of native types was a critically beneficial language-design decision for Java, but it does complicate teaching. In .NET, it's even harder to teach, because you can't say that value types are limited exceptions.

About a year ago, I had a friendly debate with my colleague Allen Holub about the changes in the then-new C# 2.0 and Java 5 languages. One disagreement we have is that Allen doesn't like generics, I do. I tend to like explicit typing, my feeling is that 99% percent of the time you have a type intent that you can memorialize with a few finger strokes and gain Intellisense and better comprehension. But Allen cleverly didn't argue the finger-typing issue, he said that what he disagrees with is that generics are not OO, thereby making the language harder to learn.

He's right. Once upon a time, C was relatively easy to learn; learning how pointers work was the big issue. Now, I can't imagine someone "picking up" C++ and not being absurdly non-productive. Never mind the STL, how many freaking ways are there just to represent a string? John Montgomery recently posted the surprising factoid that the most commonly used languages by non-professional programmers are HTML, JavaScript, and C++, more than VB or Java or Perl. One wonders what perception these people gain of the task of professional programming.

This is why, when thinking about trends in language syntax, I think there's a possibility, although not necessarily a likelihood, of a collapse towards simplicity and the widespread embrace of a LISP-like or Smalltalk-like language.

The WMPlayer10SDK does not contain the expected primary interop assembly (PIA) so that Windows Media Player can be programmed from .NET languages such as Visual Basic and C#. The WMP 9 SDK puts a PIA in the /redist directory. However, the WMP10 SDK can be programmed in a managed language: you can just copy the files AxInterop.WMPLib.dll and Interop.WMPLib.dll from the /samples directory. Or, you can still download the WMP9SDK and use the old PIA.

Okay, hopefully this post now contains enough keywords to be found via search engines...