'Xen' programming language unites C#, XML and SQL programming languages.
Microsoft Research has been dabbling with a number of new programming languages and paradigms. Last year, the F# language was big news. Now, another Microsoft Research byproduct, a language called "Xen," is slowly gaining traction. There are a few pieces of information on Xen floating around the Web. Some characterize Xen as "the hypothetical extension of C#." Others describe Xen as an amalgamation of Microsoft's Common Language Runtime (CLR), XML and SQL programming language.
C#, the brainchild of Anders Hejlsberg, a Microsoft distinguished engineer and chief C# language architect, is considered by many as Microsoft's alternative to Java.Microsoft presented a paper on Xen the XML 2003 conference in Philadelphia in December. Microsoft Weblogger Dare Obasanjo provided some notes about the presentation. "The main thesis of the paper was that heavily used APIs (application programming interfaces) and programming idioms eventually tend to be likely candidates for including into the language," explained Obasanjo.
News source: eWeek