Microsoft rolls out new developer toys: Bing#, Gestalt and more
Summary: While Windows 7 is stealing most of the headlines this week, Microsoft -- and one of its MVPs -- are also rolling out some new developer toys.
While Windows 7 is stealing most of the headlines this week, Microsoft -- and one of its MVPs -- also are rolling out some new developer toys.
Bing# (Bing Sharp) is one of these. (Thanks to Softie Scott Hanselman for the tweet.) As described on Microsoft's CodePlex repository site:
"Bing Sharp is a C# API that wraps the Bing API 2.x XML requests. It provides an object model for interacting with the Bing Api so you do not have to deal with the XML, JSON or Soap."
Bing# shares a naming convention with a number of Microsoft's growing stable of "Sharp" tools. Others include C#, Spec#, F# and X#. Bing is the renamed and updated version of Microsoft's search engine that was formerly known as Live Search.
(Update: I have modified this post to rectify my error in describing Bing# as a Microsoft-developed technology. In fact, Bing# is the brainchild of Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Joseph Guadagno.)
Another new developer-focused "project" -- this one from the Mix Online folks -- is "Gestalt." Gestalt is a library that allows coders to use Python and Ruby as alternatives to the JavaScript language in building (X)HTML pages on PCs or Macs.
In chatting with Microsoft Principal Program Manager Hanselman, I learned that Silverlight is part of Gestalt.
"Gestalt lets developers plug in different languages that make developers happy," he said. "It's done with the Silverlight engine, the run-time environment. Other developers can extend it to support other languages," Hanselman said.
A beta of the Gestalt code and related tools are available for download under the Microsoft Public License from the VisitMix site.
Microsoft also released this week the final version of its Expression 3 designer tools. (Microsoft delivered the RC of Expression 3 earlier this month.)
Expression 3 adds a couple of new features Microsoft showed off earlier this year, specifically SketchFlow in Expression Blend and SuperPreview in Expression Web.
Prices for the various Expression 3 tools are on the Expression purchase page.
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Talkback
Wonderful! Even more proprietary, nonstandard code and data
platform, consciously made that way.
I understand why the american states and EU have bitched about IE and
WiMP, but an even bigger threat than that to the free market is to the
openness of the grand internet and these locks to the redmondian
platform. The governments should react on this too.
Er, no.
- Bing# is an open source project published under an OSI-approved licence.
No one is making you, or anybody, use any of it, are they?
proprietary?
If somebody do something that everybody use, then that's standard.
Typical anti-MS knee jerk stupidity
Nonstandard code and data?
Is anyone forcing you to buy/use Microsoft's products?
What you are suggesting governments do is stifle innovation? Is that what you consider openness?
Microsoft the monopolist
implement their own. And what is standard data? I think you were
referring to programming languages, frameworks, class libraries."[/i]
I'm pretty sure it'll be difficult to port any of it to other platforms,
much like DirectX, etc.
[i]"Is anyone forcing you to buy/use Microsoft's products?"[/i]
No, but you to stay.
[i]"What you are suggesting governments do is stifle innovation? Is
that what you consider openness?"[/i]
Governments stifling innovation? Ha! What innovation?
Innovation practically NEVER comes from the monopolist, and always
from the competing companies or from some most unexpected
source, much like with science.
Microsoft the monopolist - What about apple and google?
I can't build applications for iPhone without a Mac... Not even an emulator for non MACOS PC's is available...
And Google is getting more and more powerful...
Most of the IT people has a "good x evil" way of seeing things (the "B.Gates as Darth Vader stuff"), a very naive an childish perspective in my point of view.
Everything that MS does is seen as "evil", and Google and Apple are always the "good guys".
Twenty years ago, MS was the "Good" and IBM was the "Bad"... And MS took advantage of it's good public image (yes, they had a good public image in those days) to grow more and more monopolistic.
Microsoft is *proven* to be evil
of newspaper articles. I challenge you to find anything as incriminating
and blatantly obvious about Apple or Google.
All is fair in love and war they say, but MS has played way too dirty.
Folks need to read Googles TOS ...
It says they can claim rights to ANY content submitted through their services. That?s not very nice either. Google isn't all sunshine & rainbows either.
It is a standard and it's essentially open licensed
Bing#
RE: Microsoft rolls out new developer toys: Bing#, Gestalt and more
RE: Microsoft rolls out new developer toys: Bing#, Gestalt and more