[DotGNU]Visual Basic front end for cscc

[Rhys Weatherley]

Hi all,

I've just checked in the beginnings of my Visual Basic.NET front end for the 
Portable.NET compiler into pnet CVS and the supporting standard library into 
pnetlib CVS.  (And hopefully Gopal's Java front end will be checked in this 
weekend some time).

Right now, the compiler understands a good chunk of the syntax, but the 
semantic analysis routines are currently being handled by the C# compiler.  
This means that it currently implements "C# with VB keywords", but that will 
change very quickly as the VB-specific semantic analysis routines are added.

The following "hello.vb" program does what you would expect:

----------------------------------------------------
Imports System

Module Hello

Public Shared Sub Main
10: Console.WriteLine("Hello World")
    Goto 10
End Sub

End Module
----------------------------------------------------

I had to put "Goto 10" in the program - it's traditional! :-)

Compile with "cscc -o hello hello.vb" and run with "ilrun hello".

If you would like to help out on the VB project, then there is lots of work 
still to do:

    1. Building the treecc nodes in the parser for the remaining syntax.
    2. VB-specific semantic analysis and codegen routines.
    3. Flesh out the standard library in pnetlib/Basic.
    4. Build test cases for the compiler in cscctest.
    5. Build test cases for the standard library in pnetlib/Basic.

1 and 2 require cscc compiler skills - if you're interested in learning the 
compiler, then this is the time to start.  The Java, VB, C#, and C front ends 
will all need lots of eager beavers over the next few months.

3, 4, and 5 are easier, mainly requiring C# and/or VB programming skills.  
Grep for "TODO" under pnetlib/Basic, check out the documentation for the 
Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace on msdn.microsoft.com, and send in those 
patches!

Cheers,

Rhys.