This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Jonathan Crossland. Original Post: One Thing the Next Generation of Software Needs First Feed Title: Jonathan Crossland Weblog Feed URL: http://www.jonathancrossland.com/syndication.axd Feed Description: Design, Frameworks, Patterns and Idioms Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Jonathan Crossland Latest Posts From Jonathan Crossland Weblog

The Next Generation of software needs a better, cross platform software abstraction layer.

The Software Abstraction Layer needs to be a small, yet effective and efficient set of utilities and types, that make the base activities in software seamless and effortless.

I cannot dictate what exactly should be catered for in the layer, but there are some problems in our software world that never seems to go away. Some bugs that always need to be dealt with, and complexities that are pointlessly time consuming.

Some of these like features should be perfectly dealt with, bug free, within our platforms, like culture, regional formats and time zones which are still not implemented as well as it could be in the most widely used platforms. .NET took years to get to a usable level. There are several libraries for Dates, all working differently, different benefits, different bugs. But there are other features, infrastructure features that are universal problems, yet universally different on each library and platform you use.

But more than that, the "levels of abstraction" are entirely different, all the libraries and platforms are being created with profit and business in mind. They are not designed appropriately enough to be a bedrock for all software. They (like .NET and Java), improve with each year, but they are too different, yet too similar beasts. They all have flaws and goodness, but they are not the same, nor compatible, nor solid.
If you take berkley sockets, or other open source projects where the aim is 'software improvement', not money, things begin to change, but not entirely, as there is no standard to work from either.

The Next Generation of software needs a HAL or a Software Abstraction Layer. Except this layer should be a collaboration from many parties, and it should sit above all operating systems, for all platforms. This layer should have programmatic certainties, like guaranteed Dates, across platforms, internet, databases (insert your abilities here). Think of it as a merging of the core data types and functions of .NET and java and the like, into a definite agreed interface that sits on all platforms.

We need a common infrastructure to achieve the next ge neration of software, else we are just widening the gap between platform and system, making users more confused, developers more diverse and many irrelevant to other technologies. 

I want to see Microsoft, IBM, Apple and other important players join up and create "the software layer", that will exist, just below java, just below .NET, and is the same across the platforms. A layer that will disappear like tcp/ip into the layers of inner workings, away from most developers. The benefits of this are enormous.

let's face it, .NET, nor Java are perfect, and how far can each go? How large can the libraries get? until you need another layer on top? I think we need to get the lessons learnt from java and .net into a universal software abstraction layer, that raises java and .net higher up the food chain.