Kingsley Tagbo wrote:

Why is it possible to create implement custom plug in algorithms only with C++ It looks like Microsoft's direction is .NET Framework for application development even on SQL Server 2005 (Yukon) with the new CLR integration. However, when it comes to data mining and analysis services, it looks like C++ is the only language available. Am I missing something or is it possible?

Jamie MacLennan (MS) wrote:

The reason that plug-in algorithms are in C++ is because Analysis Service is in C++. The Analysis Services server performs it's own memory management and provides a facility to the plug-in algorithms so they can partake in this memory management. Also, since we stream data to the plug-in algorithms on a case-by-case basis, there would be a noticable performance hit as each case is marshalled across the managed/unmanaged boundary. You are not limited to C++ by the way - you can use any language accessible to COM. We are, in fact, working on a sample to wrap the COM interfaces with .Net to allow for managed plug-ins. We expect that this will be used for educational and other non-mission critical implementations. For scalable, high-performance algorithms we expect people to use C++ for the reasons mentioned above.

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