"M# (programming language)"

The correct title of this article is M# (programming language). The substitution or omission of the # is because of technical restrictions.
M#
Paradigm multi-paradigm: structured, object-oriented, event-driven, procedural, meta
Designed by Geeks ltd.
Developer Geeks ltd.
First appeared 2012
static, dynamic
License proprietary
Website http://www.msharp.co.uk/

M# (pronounced em sharp) is a code generation tool that is being marketed as a Domain-specific language that can be used to create Websites and Web Applications and its main goal is to reduce the time necessary for creating these by hand.[1] M# "language" acts as a Code generator and translates entities and page definitions to ASP.NET Web Forms and C# code which in turn form the User interface and Business logic layer of the application.

Design goals

According to its official website[2] these are the motivations behind creating M#:

Name

M# generates codes that is mainly in the C# programming language. Since "sharp" suffix has been used by a number of other .NET languages, M# followed the same convention.[3]

Syntax

M# uses its own IDE which is a web-based application. Inside that a user can type, select from suggestions (Intelli-sense) or use the mouse to define the entities or user interface modules.[4] An example would be a form module that has two buttons (Cancel and Save) and displays a Key and a Text field. The Key field is read-only and the Save button adds a content block to the database:

Internally M# keeps this module definition as an JSON file (metadata) and at the time of a build it will generate C#, ascx and ascx.cs files. From that moment XML or M# is not necessary to render the module or to be installed on the machines that will serve the page.

References

  1. "The end of offshoring?". Business Reporter.
  2. "Why M#?". Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  3. Modelling languages for the "Solution Domain"; Productivity rules!. Code Generation. 2011.
  4. "Understanding M#". Retrieved 26 May 2013.

External links