Fatvat

Intentional Software is a software company set up by former Microsoft bod, Charles Simonyi. It aims to revolutionize software by minimizing the impedance mismatch between a business problem and the code that solves it. Big aims indeed.

They gave a talk recently which Martin Fowler has blogged/bliked(?) about here together with some nonsensical tweets:

To gauge the reaction, take a look at Twitter.

@pandemonial Quite impressed! This is sweet! Multiple domains, multiple langs, no question is going unanswered

@csells OK, watching a live electrical circuit rendered and working in a C# file is pretty damn cool.

@jolson Two words to say about the Electronics demo for Intentional Software: HOLY CRAPOLA. That's it, my brain has finally exploded.

@gblock This is not about snazzy demos, this is about completely changing the world we know it.

@twleung ok, the intellisense for the actuarial formulas is just awesome

@lobrien This is like seeing a 100-mpg carburetor : OMG someone is going to buy this and put it in a vault!

Afterwards a couple of people said it was the most important demo they'd ever seen, comparing it even to the Mother of all Demos. For many there was a sense that the whole world of software development had just changed.

This all seems a bit much!

The approaches advocated by Intentional, JetBrains MPS, Model-Driven architecture and Software Factories all suggest that you can specify what you want in some higher-level than code (i.e. in a business domain language), turn the key and get your working product. The biggest problem I see is that requirements change frequently. How does agility fit in with the language workbench model?