I don't even know how modeling is called in Oslo (MGraph is common to both); certainly not Quadrant! (come on, in a textual environment!)

But modeling seems to get the upper-hand, with much lesser interest in DSLs; we love T-SQL and can do anything with it, thank you very much.

But higher-profile people in MS seem to be on the modeling side! (safer side?).

On the other hand, we never used the visual DSL tools in VS; it ain't now that we will start doing it.

If textual DSLs are going to be ditched, we all deserve to know about this eventuality (better sooner than later).

-Ciper

What you're really just seeing is that the language facilities of "M" just so happen to find a home within the overall "modeling" efforts. This is often the case in a corporation like Microsoft, that really interesting technologies that don't warrant being a product in and of themselves need to find a larger project that can effectively host them.

The language facilities of "M" are relatively new within the whole "Oslo" sphere and came about as a solution to various problems in that modeling space. And yet we've found that "M" has really gained traction in the developer community at large. With that, I highly doubt that "M" would be buried anywhere. The fact that Microsoft expanded involvement with the "M" Specification Community shows a longer-term dedication to the project as well as the expectation that "M" will become a more expanded project in and of itself. (If you're not involved in the spec community, you should be :) )

So yes, modeling is important to Microsoft at this time, but that doesn't mean that language processing is not. Both are important in their own ways and will continue to evolve as everything in this dynamic industry tends to do.

And thanks for your understanding witht the other posts; it's a good thing we can clean up that kind of stuff lest it become immortalized to one's ongoing embarrasment.

.Kraig