[jakebasile]

Could be! Depends if MS starts putting some more money behind it, including marketing. They're pretty deep in an AI-everything spiral right now though.

I'm a Clojure guy, but the ML family (specifically OCaml and F#) have always interested me as another branch of functional programming. I started out in the before times as a .NET Programmer (VB6 -> VB.NET -> C#) and have toyed with F# a little since then. It's cool, but the tooling leaves a lot to be desired compared to what's available for OCaml unless you decide to use full fat Visual Studio.

What I particularly like about them is the middle ground of inferred types. I don't need types since maps, lists, and value types are enough for me in almost all cases, but if I must use a strongly typed system why not let the compiler figure it out for me? I always thought that was a neat idea.

[CrimsonCape]

I had a thought today, "when is Microsoft and/or Apple going to earnestly search out their next Steve Jobs?"

And I think the answer is that guys like Bill Gates and Tim Cook are too proud, too prideful to admit they are not kickass rockstars of tech, too jealous to find and cultivate their next super-figurehead. Instead they are safe and lame.

Microsoft needs a non-lame, non-MBA, engineer to take control and inject some younger mindset into making themselves cool again, focused back on tech, UI, user experience, and passion. Engineer tooling would be a great approach.

[UncleOxidant]

Gates hasn't been involved in Microsoft technically since 2008 when he stepped down as chief software architect. It doesn't make sense that he's somehow standing in the way.

[cjbgkagh]

That was supposed to be Scott Guthrie but he got pulled into the Azure whirlpool.