Microsoft's Roslyn: Reinventing the Compiler as We Know It

Microsoft recently launched Project Roslyn, a compiler-as-a-service technology that aims to bring powerful new features to C#, Visual Basic, and Visual Studio.

Roslyn is a complete reengineering of Microsoft's .Net compiler toolchain, exposing each phase of the code compilation as a service that can be consumed by other applications.

Roslyn will allow the entire compile-execute process to be invoked from within .Net applications. If the code is put into a loop that accepts input from the user, Roslyn will create a fully interactive read-eval-print loop console for C#, enabling users to manipulate and experiment with .Net application programming interfaces (APIs) and other objects in real time. Roslyn APIs expose the syntax and binding data, allowing developers to write their own code refactoring algorithms in addition to the ones that ship with Visual Studio.

Microsoft has made the technology available as a Community Technology Preview, but it has not committed to making it into a product for Visual Studio. "Roslyn represents not merely a new iteration of the Visual Studio toolchain but a whole new way for developers to interact with their tools," writes InfoWorld's Neal McAllister.

From InfoWorld
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