Microsoft has been promoting a futures feature of its .NET compilers called Compiler As A Service(CAAS). CAAS will allow direct access to the functionality of the compiler. From a Microsoft job posting described here CAAS allows “REPL, write-your-own refactorings, C# and VB as scripting languages, and taking .NET to the cloud”. I think VB.NET, in particular, stands to gain with the potential to have C# code be convertible to VB.NET.
“Tightening the feedback loop” has been my mantra over the past year. In just one sense of this phrase, REPLs (read evaluate print loop) are a way to get immediate feedback on your code. I have been using, and loving, LinqPad a lot lately. It is far more than way to perform Linq queries. It is a very well thought out code snippet compiler. It isn’t truly a REPL, code is compiled with the benefit of behind the scenes code that LinqPad provides to make a complete class library. Also, unlike a REPL, once code is run, its variables aren’t treated as globally available for continued use. Essentially it is read-evaluate-print without the loop. Linqpad does succeed in providing much quicker feedback. Besides LinqPad, PowerShell and the Firebug for Firefox Javascript commandline are things I use frequently.
Aspect-oriented programming with tools like PostSharp could be greatly enhanced by CAAS. Postsharp works as a post-compilation code weaving. I think it might be significantly easier to weave code with the compiler functionality opened up. The job posting suggests that Refactoring processes could benefit on the other direction as a mini-compilation step done in the background to assist in changing the codebase. I wouldn’t want to speculate how though at this point.
As a LinqPad user in VB.NET you are a second class citizen since Intellisense is only provided for C#. Joe Albahari articulates on stackoverflow that CAAS would allow him to more easily provide VB.NET intellisense.
Putting a VB.NET specific spin on CAAS, is the potential ability to seamlessly convert between VB.NET and C#. One of the obstacles facing VB.Net is the necessity of converting code snippets available only in C#. For example, trying to convert a C# Linq statement to VB.NET fails utterly using Telerik’s converter, http://converter.telerik.com/. This will help a real pain point in using VB.NET.
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