Will Microsoft Get Into Intentional Programming?

At Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting this morning, chairman Bill Gates said he wants to “make programming easy for information workers and professionals.”

It’s possible Gates is talking about intentional programming, a method that allows subject matter experts like insurance adjusters or doctors to describe what they want programs to do as part of the development process.

The vision of a broad community of developers was very key to all of our platform work. We have been raising this semantic level with things like LINQ. We can go to levels even beyond that.

- Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman

LINQ is a new, easier way to refer to data in a database. He said that part of the Office, SharePoint and Windows platforms going forward will be to let people write simpler applications.

Clearly, this is some hazy talking, with very few details. Typical Microsoft.

There’s always been a goal to let the everyman write applications and we are starting to see that realization in small ways with things like PopFly and other Web mash-up tools.

An interesting fact about Intentional Programming… Charles Simonyi’s, left Microsoft to form his own company Intentional Software.

Here’s how Charles Simonyi describes intentional programming:

The traditional model is oriented toward the computer. You are describing a program that will run on a computer, but what’s missing is what the problem is.

In intentional programming, you focus on what the problem is, not necessarily oriented toward the computer. It involves the subject matter experts, be it an insurance plan offering or a very complex aerospace system.

When you have a description of the problem, through a generative approach, you connect that problem system with generative software.

Intentional Software is still a very young company and intentional programming is a very young model.

However, one of the reasons Charles Simonyi left Microsoft is because he didn’t think he could try the ideas of intentional programming out from within Microsoft.

As the company and idea grows in status, he just might. This could easily be a long term path for Microsoft.

Thoughts?

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