In a recent article on the Redmond Developer News website about the new Microsoft Declarative Language D, I was quoted, but it is was slightly inaccurate. The first part is corrected:
"said he believes both the D language and Oslo will be featured at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in October."
Which clearly states that I believe (and hope) that the D Language will be featured at the PDC. Right after the I also stated:
"The D Language is the reason why the PDC was cancelled last year," Demsak said. "All I know is that they (Microsoft) have been very, very quiet about the D Language. I'm hoping to see more at the MVP summit, but I really don't hold out much hope for the language, if they have gone towards making it data-driven."
The missing part is that it was my opinion that is was part of the reason PDC was canceled, along with my usual disclaimers (like if someone in Microsoft actually told me that, then I couldn't say it because of my NDAs). So, yes, it is all my opinion, and not something I've been told by anyone in Microsoft. I'm usually pretty good at being careful about what I say to the press, and make sure to phrase things as my opinion when I'm expressing just that. And, yes that means I don't know anything about the D Language other than what has been officially published, which is why I felt that I could express my opinion. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a quote from me.
Here's the official statement on why the PDC was canceled last year:
Q: Why was the PDC canceled last fall?
A: The PDC was actually rescheduled. Microsoft tries to time the PDC to be in front of major platform milestones, and the size and scope of the PDC requires us to schedule a suitable venue far in advance. For 2007, we intended to align PDC with the next wave of platform technologies, such as Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, Silverlight and SQL Server (codenamed “Katmai”). However, these platform deliverables were already in developers’ hands. Rather than hold a PDC focused on a review of those technologies, Microsoft chose to reschedule the PDC to align with the next wave of platform technologies to be released beyond 2008.