The M family of languages is meant for all kinds of things, from executable models, e.g. defining a workflow and executing it via the Workflow runtime, to allowing a business person to express something in a language, either visual or textual, that they understand so that it can be communicated as formally as desired to another human. As an example of the latter, Claudio Perrone has implemented a DSL in MGrammar for Behavior-Driven Development.
It is amazing to me how many of these little DSLs have popped in M just since the PDC. Keep ’em coming!
I’m thinking it’s time for another DevCon. I know it’s been a while since the last one (in fact, I hear there was some kind of petition to have another one? : ), so we’re long past due.
This one will be on all things data-driven, model-based and/or DSL enhanced. I’m thinking March or April of 2009. Who’s interested?
Justin Bailey has built a little language in MGrammer to create tasks and even better, he’s provided a very tutorial on how he did it. Following along with him would make a great way to learn the basics of Mg. Plus, I love his conclusions:
“Mg is clearly a powerful technology for defining languages. The above is a trivial use, but already we have bypassed most simple file parsing techniques. Quoted strings and balanced parentheses are the bane of non-parsing techniques and it appears that Mg will be placing those abilities within reach of most .NET developers.”
Oh my lord above. I have been working towards last week for about 3.5 years altogether. It started with an incubation in the Connected Systems Division (CSD — the folks that own WF, WCF, BizTalk, etc) doing work to see if modeling was a feasible way to build applications and we just announced the work so far along these lines at the PDC last week. It’s called “Oslo” and here are the top places you should look to get up to speed on it:
