Re: [DotGNU]Doubts about C@

[Rhys Weatherley]

Peter Minten wrote:

> I don't know generics, but if Gopal doubts that it can be done in standard IL
> then it's certainly too complicated for me to write a compiler for :-).

There is a generics extension for IL from Microsoft Research,
but it hasn't been fully standardised yet.  Once they sign
off on it, I'll be looking into the necessary support code in
the runtime engine.

> I've been thinking of dynamic code too, it could be possible to create new
> classes during execution, but there is a little bit of a problem. To use code
> in a program it must be compiled, but you can't compile code generated in
> execution.

System.Reflection.Emit is used to do things like this.  Minor
problem: we don't have it in pnetlib yet. :-)

However, this is still pretty hard.  You need to have the
entire compiler available at runtime.  And that would probably
be infeasible in this case, for a feature that would be used
quite rarely.

As to the global stuff mentioned in your previous message,
that would certainly help interoperability with C.  C uses
a special class called "<Module>" to contain the global
definitions.

I am a little concerned that C@ is turning into a kitchen
sink language.  The problem with such languages is that they
are very difficult, if not impossible, to implement.  Don't
get too far ahead of yourself.

Cheers,

Rhys.