Other voices: "Anything you can do, I can do meta"

In January 2007, Technology Review published an interview with Charles Simonyi, the original creator of Microsoft Office and Hungarian notation. In this interview, Simonyi outlines a different way of thinking about software development that might become fundamental for the way we treat software in the next decade.

Simonyi shares much of the common dissatisfaction with software. "Software as we know it is the bottleneck on the digital horn of plenty," he says. "It takes up tremendous resources in talent and time. It's disappointing and hard to change. It blocks innovation in many organizations."

Simonyi's ambition is to unstop that software bottleneck--characteristically, by going meta. He's developed an approach he calls intentional programming (or, more recently, intentional software), which he hopes will overturn programming. If Simonyi has his way, programmers will stop trying to manage their clients' needs. Instead, for every problem they're asked to tackle--whether inventory tracking or missile guidance--they will create generic tools that the computer users themselves can modify to guide the software's future evolution.

There are many ways you can fill in this philosophy. In my opinion, pure XML platforms on top of Java foundations may become key technology to this way of thinking. Take a look at Intalio for example (which uses Orbeon XForms by the way).

Read the full article over here. Yes, it is long but it is worth reading!