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Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

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Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#11

Post by thinkling »

haspok wrote: post #10

It always amazed me that during their ~10 years of existence they never actually produced anything visible, other than demos. I remember I had been very excited about their "intentional" approach, even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages? The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no…

Work on Intentional Programming started at Microsoft Research in the 90s. Simonyi has been on this path for 20+ years.

Did the Intentional website have any info on their work before the acquisition? There's nothing there now.

Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#12

Post by WaxProlix »

haspok wrote: post #10

It always amazed me that during their ~10 years of existence they never actually produced anything visible, other than demos. I remember I had been very excited about their "intentional" approach, even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages? The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no…

I worked there for about a year, there were a number of contracts fulfilled using the workbench and associated technology (mostly NDA). At some point there was a pivot to a graphics-heavy reinterpretation of the core tech, which was pretty secretive and so didn't get a lot of press.

My project didn't use the core 'intentional' tech and we got spun off into an atrociously mismanaged, doomed sub-startup, so don't ask me too much about the intentsoft tech itself (though I can probably give rough answers for any high level stuff if you're curious).

Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#13

Post by DonaldFisk »

bluesmoon wrote: post #7

Charles Simonyi is also the person behind the Hungarian Notation of naming variables.

According to Joel Spolsky, Hungarian notation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation) has been misunderstood (as System Hungarian). In its intended form (Apps Hungarian), it's a good idea: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-...

Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#14

Post by petra »

haspok wrote: post #10

It always amazed me that during their ~10 years of existence they never actually produced anything visible, other than demos. I remember I had been very excited about their "intentional" approach, even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages? The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no…

Like a lot of basic research, it's often others who sucseed at commercializing the innovation. And domain-specific-languages are an important tool today.

Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#15

Post by haspok »

DalekBaldwin wrote: post #4
walterbell wrote: post #2

2009 article by Martin Fowler on Intentional's Domain Workbench, https://martinfowler.com/bliki/IntentionalSoftware.html > Afterwards a couple of people said it was the most important demo they'd ever seen, comparing it even to the Mother of all Demos. For many there was a sense that the whole world of software development had just changed.

For the curious: it's difficult to find that particular demo on the web now, but the system didn't look too much different from its earlier incarnation at Microsoft in the '90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnnfUj1XCQ

I know it is not a fair comparison, but modern IDEs such as IntelliJ IDEA do pretty much everything demonstrated in this video. They build a database of the project, and let you do refactoring with the help of that.

The only thing that is notably missing from IDEA is the graphical representation: but raise your hand if you ever missed to see your program represented as a flowchart, for example. Does it actually have any real value? Perhaps, while you are learning programming.

The diagrams that are actually important and useful are mostly architecture diagrams and are impossible to create from source code - and it is also very hard to generate meaningful programs from architecture diagrams.

Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#16

Post by SpindleyQ »

WaxProlix wrote: post #12
haspok wrote: post #10

It always amazed me that during their ~10 years of existence they never actually produced anything visible, other than demos. I remember I had been very excited about their "intentional" approach, even though so many years later I tend to think that it is actually an evolutionary dead-end (anyone remembers 4GL and 5GL languages? The late 90s when CASE tools and visual IDEs like Delphi were all the rage?). There is no…

I worked there for about a year, there were a number of contracts fulfilled using the workbench and associated technology (mostly NDA). At some point there was a pivot to a graphics-heavy reinterpretation of the core tech, which was pretty secretive and so didn't get a lot of press. My project didn't use the core 'intentional' tech and we got spun off into an atrociously mismanaged, doomed sub-startup, so don't ask m…

I worked at Intentsoft in its earlier days (2006-2011) and left just as it was really starting to seriously staff up. I look at the pictures of the office these days and it's so surreal to me to see the absurd growth of what had stayed a small team for a really long time.

Is the Pole Position cabinet still there? Did anyone ever fix the monitor? I miss that thing.

Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#17

Post by SpindleyQ »

walterbell wrote: post #2

2009 article by Martin Fowler on Intentional's Domain Workbench, https://martinfowler.com/bliki/IntentionalSoftware.html > Afterwards a couple of people said it was the most important demo they'd ever seen, comparing it even to the Mother of all Demos. For many there was a sense that the whole world of software development had just changed.

That's the DSL DevCon demo, video here: https://channel9.msdn.com/Series/DSL-DevCon-2009/Intentional...

Best demo we ever gave while I was there, by a longshot.

Re: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software Joining Microsoft

#18

Post by WaxProlix »

SpindleyQ wrote: post #16
WaxProlix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked there for about a year, there were a number of contracts fulfilled using the workbench and associated technology (mostly NDA). At some point there was a pivot to a graphics-heavy reinterpretation of the core tech, which was pretty secretive and so didn't get a lot of press. My project didn't use the core 'intentional' tech and we got spun off into an atrociously mismanaged, doomed sub-startup, so don't ask m…

I worked at Intentsoft in its earlier days (2006-2011) and left just as it was really starting to seriously staff up. I look at the pictures of the office these days and it's so surreal to me to see the absurd growth of what had stayed a small team for a really long time. Is the Pole Position cabinet still there? Did anyone ever fix the monitor? I miss that thing.

They actually moved down the street from that original office about 2 and change years ago. This is around when I left, coincidentally, so it's hard to remember which cabinets made the trip or not.
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