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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Watch this video on X++ Translator to Managed Code

Introduction

Thanks to Peter and team for this great video. In a brief, this gives us an insight about the future roadmap for X++. Watch out this video. Please see the link below the extract..

Dynamics Program Manager Peter Villadsen and Software Developer Gustavo Plancarte teach us about a new tool they've developed that translates X++ byte code into MSIL. We learn a lot of history along the way and gain insights into the process of taking X++ into the .NET age.


Microsoft Dynamics features a proprietary language called X++ (basically a superset of Java, with some strong data primitives added) and a complete stack (compiler, interpreter and debugger) that goes with it. The new feature Peter and team have developed is a tool to generate managed code from the X++ intermediate language produced by the X++ compiler. This will have profound impact on the performance of the business applications written in X++, and it very clearly points to where they'll be going in the next few releases of Dynamics Ax.

http://beta.channel9.msdn.com/posts/Charles/Peter-Villadsen-and-Gustavo-Plancarte-Inside-Ax-Translator-X-to-MSIL/

My Thoughts

Downloaded this 30-min video and here are some of my thoughts after going through it:

a. Start learning .Net Fx, C#, LINQ to hold your jobs ;-)
b. In my opinion, I feel X++ is still a good DSL (Domain Specific Language) closely written and tightly integrated with the business modules and C# or VB.Net should be used as the client interaction language to write user interfaces or client logic. This is possible via the translator which can translate pcode from X++ to IL.
c. Pete rightly says that the Morphx IDE is more suited for RAD developers compared to the current Visual Studio IDE and I completely agree with him. In my experience as a RAD Developer, I found the Classic Visual Basic IDE (Visual Studio 6.0) and the MorphX IDE (in Axapta 3.0) which gives the best developer RAD Experience.
d. In the future as the roadmap would be to migrate all the codebase to .Net, it would be advantageous  for the upcoming generation of developers or technology consultants for Dynamics AX ERP as they need not worry about learning multiple languages i.e. X++ and .Net, they have to just invest in one language. Also, there won't be shortage of resources as .Net skills are available in abundant in the market.
e. It would be interesting to see how this translator evolves into the mainstream product and when it will be released

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would say the language was never important. It takes several days/weeks to get fully familiar with X++ for a new developer. But that does not make him experienced in AX. Replace X++ with .net and you still need several years to comfortably understand the application and all its relations and catches.

Dilip said...

I totally agree with you. You have hit at the right point! The challenge in AX is not the language, it's how the functional modules are integrated and the way the information flow happens across the different modules, so as you said, it will take months/years of experience to get the techno-functional grip on AX. Good thought there

Anonymous said...

As a variant, yes