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Microsoft, Red Hat to enhance programming language

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Microsoft recently announced the general availability of .NET Core 1.0 and ASP.NET Core 1.0 on Windows, OS X and Linux at the three day Red Hat summit being held at San Francisco. .NET Core is a cross-platform, open source, and modular .NET platform for creating modern web apps, micro-services, libraries and console applications.

According to the company, the new version also includes the first release of the .NET Standard Library, which will enable developers to reuse their code and skills for applications that run on servers, the cloud, desktops and across any device including Windows, iOS and Android. With the release of .NET Core 1.0, Red Hat extended its active support for .NET Core 1.0 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, providing the benefits of .NET to the entire Red Hat ecosystem.

In November last year, Red Hat partnered with Microsoft to offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the preferred choice for enterprise Linux workloads on Microsoft Azure. This move was to help customers embrace hybrid cloud computing by providing greater choice and flexibility deploying Red Hat solutions on Microsoft Azure.

Joseph Sirosh, Corporate Vice President, Data Group, Microsoft in an official Microsoft blog, says:

According to Forrester Research, more than 40 percent of IT decision makers consider open source a “critical priority” for the upcoming year, citing agility and flexibility as required assets in a rapidly changing cloud world. And many of these IT decision makers are from enterprise companies across a wide variety of industries, illustrating how open source technologies are poised to accelerate innovation in the enterprise.

He further adds that Microsoft’s commitment means that companies can leverage its open, flexible, enterprise-ready cloud to accelerate their digital transformation – and that developers can build differentiated applications enabled by the cloud using any language, tool or platform.

Language server protocol

Microsoft and Red Hat have also announced adoption of a language server protocol project representing a collaborative effort to provide a common way to integrate programming languages across code editors and integrated development environments. With the Eclipse Che team, Red Hat has also announced the adoption of Visual Studio Code’s Language Server Protocol, an open protocol that enables some of the rich editing features in VS Code. This shows that the open source contributions from VS Code are being adopted by tool and language providers, giving developers the flexibility to pair their favorite language with their favorite tools.

“We see a tremendous opportunity to improve the way software is created, especially in the cloud, and we are focused on bringing that innovation to our customers in a way they can more easily adopt,” says Harry Mower, Senior Director, Developer Programs, Red Hat.

According to Red Hat, the Language Server Protocol is an open source project that defines a JSON-based data exchange protocol for language servers. Hosted on GitHub and licensed under the creative commons and MIT licenses, the project promotes interoperability between editors and language servers, enabling developers to access intelligent programming language assistants – such as find by symbol, syntax analysis, code completion, go to definition, outlining and refactoring – within their editor or IDE of choice.

Tyler Jewell, Codenvy CEO and Eclipse Che project lead, says:

Historically, most programming languages have only been optimized for a single tool. This has prevented developers from using the editors they know and love, and has limited opportunities for language providers to reach a wide audience. With a common protocol supported by Microsoft, Red Hat and Codenvy, developers can gain access to intelligence for any language within their favorite tools.

The Language Server Protocol collaboration enables:

  • Developer flexibility and choice as they can Developers can access rich editing experiences across new programming languages, while continuing to use their preferred tools.
  • Multiple operating systems: Programming language providers can support multiple tools across a variety of operating systems, maximizing their reach and relevance.
  • Editor support: Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Eclipse Che, the next-generation Eclipse IDE, have added support for the protocol.
  • Many programming languages: A number of programming language servers are available today, including JSON, C++, and Powershell, which are available in VS Code or VS Code extensions.
  • Open collaboration: Codenvy, Microsoft and Red Hat are committed to developing this protocol in collaboration with the open source community. Hosted on a public repository, anyone can submit feedback or contribute pull requests to enhance and refine the project.
  • Language server registry: Language servers are published as part of a global registry, built by Codenvy as an Eclipse project and hosted by the Eclipse Foundation, to make language servers discoverable for any tool to consume.

“We see a tremendous opportunity to improve the way software is created, especially in the cloud, and we are focused on bringing that innovation to our customers in a way they can more easily adopt. Developer choice is a key area for us and interoperability of programming languages and tools is an important part of Red Hat’s developer strategy,” says Harry Mower, Senior Director, Developer Programs, Red Hat.

Microsoft in partnership with Red Hat and 21Vianet, also claims to have extended support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Azure China operated by 21Vianet. This means the Red Hat customers in China now have access to Azure in China for the first time, driving new levels of cloud scale, supportability and agility in a key global market.

At Red Hat Summit, Microsoft has also announced CloudForms 4.1, for significantly advances support for Azure including state analysis, metrics, chargeback and retirement, making Azure fully supported cloud in CloudForms.

Microsoft claims to make a new, easy-to-use Azure Resource Manager template on GitHub available. This will make it simple to deploy Red Hat’s OpenShift on Red Hat Enterprise Linux in Azure, so developers can quickly develop, host, and scale applications in Azure with Red Hat’s self-service, container-based platform.

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