4 ms·

Why Roslyn is a Big Deal

43 points by Permit 13y ago

amadeusw 13y ago
It's interesting to see what doors Roslyn can open for us in the craft of software development. And I'm also really looking forward to seeing some of Bret Victor's ideas implemented [1] [1] http://ermau.com/making-instant-c-viable-part-1/ http://ermau.com/making-instant-c-viable-part-1/
andrewcooke 13y ago
"Most people familiar with Roslyn understand that it marks the first real change in compilers in recent memory." and then goes on to describe llvm...
- opinali 13y ago
  Also old news in Javaland; I'd nominate Eclipse's ECJ as the great innovator.
  - Locke1689 13y ago
    Isn't ECJ just an incremental compiler? As far as I know, there is nothing like Roslyn in Java.
- jongalloway2 13y ago
  My (very limited) understanding is that Roslyn is a lot more like clang than llvm. From comment on Eric Lippert's blog: * So, is this like LLVM for the CTS/CLR? Absolutely not. Low-Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) is a tool that takes code in an intermediate form from the semantic analysis of a compiler, optimizes that intermediate form, and then emits optimized machine code. Roslyn takes in C# and VB source code and produces a lexical, syntactic and semantic analysis of it for you, and then emits the code in an intermediate form. The thing in .NET that most closely resembles LLVM is the jitter. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/10/19/the-roslyn-preview-is-now-available.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/10/19/the-r... Update - A more full response here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/11/18/why-il.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/11/18/why-i...
jfim 13y ago
Seems pretty cool, and it'll definitely be interesting to see what people will do with it. However, some parts of this (introspection and modification of ASTs) are already possible in other languages, such as Scala (through the presentation compiler and the macro system) or even Smalltalk (which doesn't have code in text files).
aashishkoirala 13y ago
Aaha! So THAT is how they made dotnetfiddle. I've got to get into this.
- jongalloway2 13y ago
  scriptcs, too: http://scriptcs.net/ http://scriptcs.net/

43 points by Permit 13y ago

It's interesting to see what doors Roslyn can open for us in the craft of software development. And I'm also really looking forward to seeing some of Bret Victor's ideas implemented [1] [1] http://ermau.com/making-instant-c-viable-part-1/ http://ermau.com/making-instant-c-viable-part-1/

andrewcooke 13y ago

"Most people familiar with Roslyn understand that it marks the first real change in compilers in recent memory." and then goes on to describe llvm...

opinali 13y ago
Also old news in Javaland; I'd nominate Eclipse's ECJ as the great innovator.
- Locke1689 13y ago
  Isn't ECJ just an incremental compiler? As far as I know, there is nothing like Roslyn in Java.
jongalloway2 13y ago
My (very limited) understanding is that Roslyn is a lot more like clang than llvm. From comment on Eric Lippert's blog: * So, is this like LLVM for the CTS/CLR? Absolutely not. Low-Level Virtual Machine (LLVM) is a tool that takes code in an intermediate form from the semantic analysis of a compiler, optimizes that intermediate form, and then emits optimized machine code. Roslyn takes in C# and VB source code and produces a lexical, syntactic and semantic analysis of it for you, and then emits the code in an intermediate form. The thing in .NET that most closely resembles LLVM is the jitter. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/10/19/the-roslyn-preview-is-now-available.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/10/19/the-r... Update - A more full response here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/11/18/why-il.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2011/11/18/why-i...

jfim 13y ago

Seems pretty cool, and it'll definitely be interesting to see what people will do with it. However, some parts of this (introspection and modification of ASTs) are already possible in other languages, such as Scala (through the presentation compiler and the macro system) or even Smalltalk (which doesn't have code in text files).

aashishkoirala 13y ago

Aaha! So THAT is how they made dotnetfiddle. I've got to get into this.

jongalloway2 13y ago
scriptcs, too: http://scriptcs.net/ http://scriptcs.net/