Microsoft Power Fx is an open source, low-code programming language
Microsoft has announced Power Fx, a new open source programming language. The Windows-maker describes it as "a low-code general purpose programming language based on spreadsheet-like formulas".
The language can be used across Microsoft’s Power Platform, and the fact that it is based on Microsoft Excel means that it should be immediately accessible to large numbers of people, even if they would not necessarily consider themselves programmers.
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The launch of Power Fx ties in closely with Microsoft making Power Automate Desktop available to everyone free of charge. The language will not only be used in this workflow automation tool, but also across the rest of the company’s low-code platforms.
Principal program manager Greg Lindhorst explains: "We have a lot of work to do to extract Power Fx from the Power Apps home where it grew up. We are actively working to integrate Power Fx into Microsoft Power Virtual Agents, Microsoft Dataverse, and Model-driven Power Apps. We’ll use these as our test beds for getting the packages right for open source sharing".
Over on GitHub, Microsoft introduces Power Fx by saying:
It is a strongly typed, declarative, and functional language, with imperative logic and state management available as needed.
Power Fx started with Power Apps canvas apps and that is where you can experience it now. We are in the process of extracting the language from that product so that we can use it in more Microsoft Power Platform products and make it available here for you to use.
More information about Microsoft Power Fx is available on GitHub and here on a dedicated blog. Documentation is available here.
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