Standards board approves Microsoft's C#, CLI

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By Matt Berger

(IDG) -- A European standards body Thursday recognized two programming tools developed by Microsoft as standard technologies for building Web services.

The European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) approved Microsoft's C# programming language and a component of its .Net Framework, called CLI (Common Language Infrastructure), as standards. The two programming tools were developed as part of Microsoft's .Net initiative, which is being developed to allow software and services to be delivered over the Internet. The group will maintain control over any changes that are proposed for the technologies.

C# is a component-oriented programming language, similar to Java in that it is intended to allow developers to write code once and reuse pieces of it when building various applications. It is derived from the C and C++ languages and is being positioned by Microsoft as the most effective programming language for building Web services based on XML.

CLI is a technology that Microsoft developed to allow programmers to build Web services and other applications in a variety of programming languages, including ones developed by Microsoft and others. It includes a virtual execution system -- the piece needed to run a program -- and base class libraries that define how different kinds of data can interact.

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CLI is the underlying technology in Microsoft's Common Language Runtime, a development product included in the .Net Framework that enables developers to write applications in more than 20 programming languages.

Although the decision by the ECMA validates Microsoft programming technology as a standard tool for building Web services, its significance for end-users remains under debate.

"Validation and significance are two very different things," said David Smith, an analyst at Gartner who covers software development. "It's very valid as a standard. Whether it's significant is the question."

Microsoft said the validation of the two technologies as standards is significant because it shows an industry consensus on the merits of the technology. A technical group made up of representatives from such companies as Intel, America Online's Netscape division, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM picked apart the two technologies, beginning in October 2000, before ratifying it as a standard. (AOL Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.com.)

"You can't [dismiss] the work of having a bunch of companies scrutinize the work from a technical standpoint," said Steven Lees, a project manager with Microsoft's tools division. "In terms of what this means for end-users, it gives them the understanding that the technology has really been scrutinized."

A battle over how Web services will be built is taking place among the various approaches from Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and other technology heavyweights. While Microsoft gathers developer support for its .Net platform, Sun is hoping the community of Java programmers will make its effort, called Sun ONE (Open Network Environment), more successful.

Gartner's Smith said the research company has few expectations for C# to gain traction over Java, or Microsoft's own programming languages such as Visual Basic and C++.

"I wonder how many people have heard of ECMA? I wonder how many people make actions based on ECMA?" Smith said. "For that matter, how many people make their decisions based on standards as a whole?"

In addition to ECMA giving its own approval, Microsoft said the group also submitted the two technologies to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for approval. That process is expected to take about 12 months, Lees said.

In 1998, Sun had planned to submit Java to the ECMA for standards certification, but it pulled out of the effort, instead launching its own Java Community Project to manage the evolution of the programming language. Since then, Java has evolved as a widely used developer platform for building applications and server software, with about 3 million developers writing code with the language, according to Sun.

With standards status, Microsoft said it hopes developers will begin to use C# and CLI to build new Web services for operating systems besides Windows. Already, an open-source effort is under way to use C# and CLI for building an open version of .Net. Dubbed Mono, the project is being led by Miguel de Icaza, the founder of open-source software maker Ximian.

But Gartner's Smith said C# and CLI do little to create an open way of developing Web services for platforms other than .Net, because they only represent a portion of the necessary technology. "It appears on the surface that this means there is a way to create some sort of cross-platform .Net." he said. "But [standardization] does nothing to address the issues around cross-platform development."

Matt Berger is a San Francisco-based correspondent for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate.