Software Composability

MS Researchers Jim Larus and Galen Hunt lead an intriguing project where they've built an OS using managed code. The project is known as Singularity. In their own words: Singularity is a research project focused on the construction of dependable systems through innovation in the areas of…

I recently caught up with some of the technical minds behind ADO.NET's Entity Framework: Architect Michael Pizzo, Technical Lead Pablo Castro and Director of Program Management Britt Johnston. What's an Entity Framework, you ask? Well, watch and learn all about this new ADO.NET…

The Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR) is a lightweight port-based concurrency library for C# 2.0 developed by George Chrysanthakopoulos in the Advanced Strategies group at Microsoft. Here, we have a deep discussion about CCR with George, a Software Architect, and Satnam Singh, Architect.…

Here is the long-awaited demo of the latest incarnation of Singularity, a research operating system written primarily in safe C#. See Singularity III: Return of the SIP, here.

Charles Torre again sits down with some of the people behind MSR's Singularity research OS. This time, we drill down into the architecture of Singularity and discuss design decisions, usage of safe code, Channels, SIPs, etc. We even manage to get Galen Hunt, the OS Guy, up to the white…

Do you remember our introduction to the Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR) with George Chrysanthakopoulos? What about our discussion with the team that implemented a robotics framework on top of it (Microsoft Robotics Studio)? Well, now we dive into the CCR API itself and learn…

How will imperative programming languages evolve to suit the needs of developers in the age of Concurrency and Composability? What role can programming languages play in enabling true composability? What are the implications of LINQ on the furture of managed  (CLS-based) and…

It's been a while since we checked in with the Singularity folks over in MSR Redmond. You know, the usual suspects like Jim Larus and Galen Hunt. So, Charles went and visited them recently to see where they are with Singularity, see what they're up to, what's new... As you may expect, they…

Functional programming is increasing in popularity these days given the inherent problems with shared mutable state that is rife in the imperative world. As we march on to a world of multi and many-core chipsets, software engineering must evolve to better equip software engineers with the tools to…

Recently, we visited MSR Cambridge(UK) to meet some of the great minds working there. In this case, we were fortunate enough to get an hour's time with Simon Peyton-Jones and Tim Harris, who are researchers working on a very hard problem: making it easier (more predictable, more reliable, more…