Translating a little bit of (microsoft) double talk...

I think that microsoft are pretty open these days. But (maybe for legal reasons) they can't always say what they mean. And on such occasions it's up to us, the community, to step forward and translate the double talk.

Here's a snippet from the launch page for a new technology: Jasper

I'll try and translate, here goes...

Jasper leverages the power of dynamic languages and the concept of convention over configuration to provide a programming surface for data that enables rapid development of data-bound applications. While most other rapid data access frameworks are only capable of working against simple databases, Jasper can scale to almost any database, regardless of size or complexity. This is possible because Jasper takes advantage of the ADO.NET Entity Framework's significant investments in mapping and conceptual data modeling.

Okay -- let me repeat that bunch of mumbo jumbo, with some commentary. (Emphasis is mine, and sections in [square brackets] provide added meaning).

Jasper leverages the power of dynamic languages and the concept of convention over configuration....

[We owe a huge debt of gratitude to David Heinemeier Hansson (dhh) for this concept, but do you think that we'd stop and actually thank him by name? Not on your life!]

...to provide "a programming surface for data" that enables rapid development of data-bound applications.

[You know, like Ruby on Rails. Again, pity we're not tough enough to mention it by name.]

While most "other" rapid data access frameworks...

[Okay -- when we say 'most', we don't mean we've actually polled all other data access frameworks and determined that this attribute is characterisic of the majority. All we mean is, you know, "Ruby on Rails."]

are only capable of working against "simple databases",

[plays into some recent FUD about RoR. Translation: F*** you DHH!]

Jasper can scale to almost any database, regardless of size or complexity.

[When we say 'Almost any database' we mean (as you'll see later in the page) "SQL Server Express or any other SQL Server 2005 edition, is required in order to use Jasper" -- so it's any database you like, as long as it's SQL Server 2005.]

This is possible because Jasper takes advantage of the "ADO.NET Entity Framework's" significant investments in mapping and conceptual data modeling.

[Remember WinFS? Remember we spent thousands of years of developer effort and billions of dollars, and delayed Vista by years... and ended up canning the whole thing. Well the only thing we salvaged from the whole sorry fiasco, was something called the ADO.Net Entity Framework. It allows you to use three synonyms, -- entity, object and model -- with three other synonyms -- schema, domain and framework -- to produce up to 36 different connotations from just two simple concepts. There's no problem so simple that developers can't over engineer it. Anyway -- when we say 'Significant Investments' we mean billions of lost dollars! and, well, let's be honst, we really mean, F*** YOU DHH! You cannot hope to challenge us! We are massive! We are the borg! We will add your technical and cultural distinctiveness to our own! We do not sleep!]

Oh, the blog entry just peters out at this point. Weird. Add your own ending. Choose your own adventure.

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