topic Re: Official Short Name for Power Query Formula Language (Informally known as 'M') in Developer

Official Short Name for Power Query Formula Language (Informally known as 'M')

jaykilleen — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 02:40:27 GMT

I have asked the question on StackOverflow and now raised the idea on the PowerBI Idea User Voice page.

Power Query Formula Language is too long

M is too short

and to make things worse... I default to Power Query Formula Language (Informally known as 'M') to cover my bases.

Looks like we have a 3 Bears issue. I'd like to see a name that is just right.

What do you think?

I thought there would be more discussion than fit for the idea page (and for some reason it is really hard to comment on the Idea page aswell (poor formatting of the text box)) so sorry for the spammy nature of this idea and question.

Re: Official Short Name for Power Query Formula Language (Informally known as 'M')

greggyb — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 05:20:04 GMT

C++

F# (which M is primarily based on)

R (this is also available in PBI desktop now)

And those are just the ones I'm familiar with. I'm sure I could find more if I wanted to. There's a long tradition of 1 letter or very short programming language names. I don't think M is too short at all, and it is certainly clear when used in context. My only problem is that it's only billed as the informal name. What's wrong with another one-letter language? Besides, it fits pretty well, M for Mashup. It is a data mashup language, after all.

Re: Official Short Name for Power Query Formula Language (Informally known as 'M')

jaykilleen — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 07:59:50 GMT

Exactly. It really just comes down to clearing up the ambiguity. It is probably only `too short` in the context of it being new and not a whole lot of search results. I probably shoulnd't disregard `M` when in a couple of years it could be as prominent as some of the other languages you have listed.

I guess, to reiterate the point, the wikipedia page for M (Programming Language) states

M programming language (disambiguation)

M is a name of several programming languages.

M may refer to:

MUMPS (or M), a computer programming language (Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System)
M (programming language) A modern, modeling language from Microsoft (previously codenamed Oslo).[1][2]

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title M programming language.