Intentional Software
{{short description|American software company}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Intentional Software
| industry = Software engineering
| fate = Acquired by Microsoft
| founded = September 2002
| defunct = April 2017
| hq_location_city = Bellevue, Washington
| key_people = Charles Simonyi (co-founder), Eric C. Anderson (CEO)
| num_employees = 50-100
| website = http://www.intentional.com
}}
Intentional Software was a software company that designed tools and platforms that followed the principles of intentional programming{{cite web|url=http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18047/?a=f|title=Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Meta|first=Scott|last=Rosenberg|publisher=|accessdate=4 September 2017}} in which programmers focus on capturing the intent of users and designers, and spend as little time as possible interacting with machines and compilers.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/business/yourmoney/28slip.html|title=Awaiting the Day When Everyone Writes Software|last=Pontin|first=Jason|date=2007|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-09-12|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} Its tools included language workbenches, tools that separated software function from implementation, and allowed 'language-focused' development.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cime.cl/archivos/ILI253/8870_cl2-MartinFowler-Language-Workbench-DSL.pdf|title=Language Workbenches: The Killer-App for Domain Specific Languages?|last=Fowler|first=Martin|date=|website=|access-date=}}{{Cite book|last=Rosenan|first=Boaz|title=Proceedings of the ACM international conference companion on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications companion |chapter=Designing language-oriented programming languages |date=2010|series=OOPSLA '10|location=New York, NY, USA|publisher=ACM|pages=207–208|doi=10.1145/1869542.1869576|isbn=9781450302401|s2cid=13841558 }} This allowed automatic rewriting of code as expert knowledge of implementation options changed.{{Cite book|last1=Simonyi|first1=Charles|last2=Christerson|first2=Magnus|last3=Clifford|first3=Shane|title=Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications |chapter=Intentional software |date=2006|series=OOPSLA '06|location=New York, NY, USA|publisher=ACM|pages=451–464|doi=10.1145/1167473.1167511|isbn=1595933484|s2cid=10334945 }} The company later began developing a platform for improving productivity of software groups.
History
Charles Simonyi led a team in Microsoft Research in the 1990s and developed the concept of Intentional Programming, in which programmers focus on capturing the intent of users and designers, and spend as little time as possible interacting with machines and compilers.{{cite book |last1=Czarnecki |first1=Krzysztof |last2=Eisenecker |first2=Ulrich W. |last3=Eisenecker |first3=Ulrich |title=Generative programming: methods, tools, and applications|chapter=11. Intentional Programming |date=2005 |publisher=Addison Wesley |location=Boston Munich |isbn=978-0201309775 |edition=6th}} Simonyi developed the paradigm and by March 1995 had built an integrated development environment demonstrating it. In September 1995, he published a technical report entitled "The Death Of Computer Languages, The Birth of Intentional Programming",{{cite tech report|title=The Death Of Computer Languages, The Birth of Intentional Programming|first1=Charles|last1=Simonyi|date=September 1995|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020024756/http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/69540/tr-95-52.doc|id=MSR-TR-95-52|publisher=Microsoft Research}} and in 1996, he presented a talk.{{cite web |title=Intentional Programming - Innovation in the Legacy Age |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010628015310/http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/ip/ifipwg/ifipwg.htm|language=en |date=4 June 1996}} The project was moved from Microsoft Research to the development group in 1999.{{cite web |last1=Ling |first1=Dan |title=IP Team Moves From Research Into Development |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010503230624/http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/ip/NewsMove.htm |date=16 August 1999}} In 2000, Microsoft Research released an educational video introducing their Intentional Programming system.{{cite AV media |date=2000 |title=Intentional Programming |url=http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs3141/ip.asf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040701023940/http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs3141/ip.asf |format=ASF |publisher=Microsoft Research |archive-date=1 July 2004|url-status=dead}}
Around spring 2001, Microsoft was rolling out C# and .NET to counter Java adoption, and decided not to productize the Intentional Programming paradigm. Simonyi obtained Microsoft's approval to take his idea out from Microsoft and commercialize it himself. Microsoft cross-licensed Simonyi's patents to Intentional Software, but he could not take any of the code. The company was co-founded by Simonyi and Gregor Kiczales in 2002, and later headed by CEO Eric Anderson. However, Kiczales left the company in 2003.{{Cite web|title=Co-Founder Of Intentional Software Has Left The Company|url=https://www.informationweek.com/co-founder-of-intentional-software-has-l/8700179|access-date=2020-07-28|website=InformationWeek|language=en}} After rewriting the code from scratch, in 2006, another major rewrite was performed.
In 2017, the company had almost 100 staff.{{Cite news|url=http://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/charles-simony-rejoins-microsoft-as-it-buys-his-startup/|title=Charles Simonyi rejoins Microsoft as it buys his startup|date=2017-04-18|work=The Seattle Times|access-date=2017-09-12|language=en-US}} On April 18, 2017, it was acquired by Microsoft,{{cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/18/microsoft-acquires-intentional-software-and-brings-old-friend-back-into-fold/|title=Microsoft acquires Intentional Software and brings old friend back into fold - TechCrunch|first=Ron|last=Miller|publisher=|accessdate=4 September 2017}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.intentional.com/charles-simonyi/|title=Charles Simonyi, Founder, Chairman, and CTO -|website=www.intentional.com|access-date=2017-09-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180825205823/http://www.intentional.com/charles-simonyi/|archive-date=2018-08-25|url-status=dead}} with many of its employees joining the Microsoft Office team.
Products and services
Intentional Software developed the Domain Workbench, a language workbench for building and working with domain-specific languages,{{Cite web|url=https://www.infoq.com/news/2007/09/intentional-at-jaoo|title=Charles Simonyi reveals production use of Intentional Software @ JAOO|website=InfoQ|access-date=2017-09-12}} and designed custom languages for clients for their particular uses.{{Cite web|url=https://www.acord.org/media/pressreleases/Pages/20140513_ACORD_Intentional_partner.aspx|title=ACORD and Intentional Software Announce Strategic Partnership — ACORD.org Press Releases|website=Press Releases|language=en-us|access-date=2017-09-12}} They also built the Intentional Platform,{{Cite web|url=http://www.intentsoft.com/intentional-technology/intentional-platform/|title=Intentional Platform -|website=www.intentsoft.com|access-date=2017-09-12}} a platform for group productivity software.
Intentional Software's ideas and capabilities were not particularly novel, and had all been around for a while. However, their language workbench was more mature than comparable tools of the time. Programs were written in a general purpose language with the working name of CL1, which was represented as a tree or database rather than text. This information could be projected or viewed in several ways, such as circuit diagrams or a C#-like language. The workbench featured integrated specification of test cases, integrated version control, and a runtime deployment option to release standalone products. The system was primarily integrated into the .NET ecosystem, but Java deployment was also supported.{{cite web |last1=Fowler |first1=Martin |title=Intentional Software |url=https://martinfowler.com/bliki/IntentionalSoftware.html |website=martinfowler.com |date=20 April 2009}}
References
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External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20160115203115/http://www.intentsoft.com/ Intentional Software] - Archived version of the company website
{{authority control}}
Category:Software companies based in Washington (state)
Category:Microsoft acquisitions
Category:2017 mergers and acquisitions
Category:Privately held companies based in Washington (state)
Category:Software companies established in 2002
Category:Companies based in Bellevue, Washington
Category:Defunct software companies of the United States
{{US-software-company-stub}}
Category:2002 establishments in the United States