Knowing .NET

A client relying on a 3rd party service which we had been assured was available received an email today that said “[The service] is in a stop sell mode at this time as we are evaluating etc.”

I’m going to have to remember that the next time I approach a deadline: “I’m sorry, Dave, but that column is in a stop sell mode as I am evaluating content choices.”

TeX and METAFONT have version numbers that asymptotically approach ? and e. This reflects Don Knuth’s decision that it’s more important to create consistency with those tools than to add features. I’ve thought about something similar with programming language design: languages like Java and C# were very “teachable” in their initial releases. The addition of generics, if nothing else, makes them significantly harder to teach. Add closures, LINQ, type inference, etc. and you’re talking about something that, while not C++, has very different “teachability” characteristics, if nothing else. Plus, there’s the burden of supporting old decisions — like the confusing way that C# deals with finalizing resources (using, IDisposable, ~Class()).

Niklaus Wirth may have been on to something producing a family of languages (Pascal, Modula, Modula-2, Oberon) each of which incorporated his experiences and current thoughts, but which were clearly distinct efforts. I suppose that programming languages have become the brands, so we have Perl 6 and C# 3.0, rather than “the latest effort” from Larry Wall or Anders Hejlsberg. I can understand why dissociating a person’s name from a brand is good for the company, but I don’t know that it’s the best way to serve the industry. Maybe it could be like movies “From the people who brought you…”

The new spinoff from Borland, CodeGear, is strongly hinting that they will produce at least one dynamic language:

CEO Ben Smith: “We’re also working on plans that can help developers take advantage of growing and emerging areas like web services, Ruby, Python and Ajax. ”

David I: “We are not limited to just a few programming languages (Delphi, Delphi .NET, Java, C++, C#)….[CodeGear will be driven by languags that are ] compiled, managed, scripted, dynamic and more…What will be the next CodeGear programming language?”

CodeGear FAQ: “The emergence of web services and new development capabilities from Ruby to Python to Ajax provide an opportunity for even more substantial innovation.”

Obvious interpretations: a stack for JavaScript programming and debugging (Ajax) and at least one of Turbo Ruby or Turbo Python.