IW: Was there any major concrete policy stance that Microsoft has made based on that event?

JM: No. It was really just to bring the industry together and have a chat, if you like. It was kind of elbow patch-wearing academics as well as some of the industry people. So it's kind of seeing where the trends are emerging. So obviously we'll take some of that back in-house and think about it, but we haven't actually made any stance as a result.

IW: Are the days numbered for Microsoft traditional languages and the rival Java language, with the growing popularity of these dynamic languages?

JM: I think I'd term Java and C# and C++ as system programming languages, and there will always be a place for system programming languages because they're well suited for rigid, well-defined, industrial-strength programming stuff. Downstream from that, the good system programming languages will be used to bubble up and surface macro functionality. So [there will be a] larger logical box of units of work, if you like, and they'll be stitched together using scripting. And that's where these dynamic languages are really going to play strongly.

IW: Is the CLR unfriendly to dynamic languages?