[Mono-devel-list] Re: [mono-vb] VB.NET Compiler - Regarding

[Jambunathan K]

Hey Rafael

Good to know that your intentions were just the same as mine :-)

My focus had all along been to get VB.NET-like code to be compiled and
executed. Case insensitivity is some thing that is yet to be taken
care.

Looking forward to your continued contributions to the new VB.NET compiler.

Regards,
Jambunathan K.


On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 16:25:20 -0200, Rafael Teixeira <monoman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jambunathan,
> 
> First, I've missed you in the last weeks, I'm happy you came back.
> 
> Second, You've been reading my mind, don't you... I was thinking of
> doing just that. Since Marco Ridoni made some huge contributions,
> years ago, I could not keep mbas in sync with mcs, what I had done
> after the fork for some months...
> 
> Well, mbas was forked so that mcs development would not be hampered,
> but I still think they can share a lot of code. I would prefer that
> logic to be shared as libraries but certainly Miguel prefers the
> current 'single-piece' design for mcs, so maybe we could use them as
> netmodules, or just shared source, for the time being.
> 
> Another possibilties I am studying:
> - using the boo compiler pipeline with a VB.NET parser.
> - advance current mbas to a better stage, and then see what can be
> refactored/componentized between it and mcs.
> 
> Anyway, I would love to see your bmcs code (BTW I would prefer a name
> like mvb for such experiment).
> 
> Have you already tackled the case-insensitive-symbol-resolution issue?
> It's surely something that should be componentized (made pluggable -
> strategy design pattern) , as the parser/tokenizer currently are in
> mbas.
> 
> Best wishes for you too,
> --
> Rafael "Monoman" Teixeira
> ---------------------------------------
> I'm trying to become a "Rosh Gadol" before my own eyes.
> See http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2004/12/06.html for enlightment.
> 
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 17:29:42 +0530, Jambunathan K
> <kjambunathan.devel at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello All
> >
> > As you might be knowing, I had been contributing to mono's VB.NET
> > compiler for a brief period of time (in my capacity as an employee of
> > Novell)
> >
> > Now that I am no more bound with Novell, I am one among the whole lot
> > of you involved with Mono.
> >
> > Over the Christmas week, during some spare time, I had been spending
> > some time building a VB.NET compiler out from the then mcs-HEAD. I am
> > calling this new mcs derivative as bmcs ('a pun on gmcs').
> >
> > I have essentially replaced C#'s tokenizer and parser (cs-tokenizer.cs
> > & cs-parser.jay) with the mbas' tokenizer and parser (mb-tokenizer.cs
> > & mb-tokenizer.jay) and I have got to a point where I can compile some
> > simple, but not so trivial 'VB.NET programs'. I plan to evolve the
> > current C# core towards a VB.NET core by liberally borrowing from the
> > curent mbas code.
> >
> > Here are e a few strong reasons why I indulged in such an experiment:
> >
> > The current mbas code branched off from mcs sometime in 2001-2002.
> > This essentially leaves the "compiler core" as an alpha quality one.
> > Also two years is too much of a time that the code bases have diverged
> > significantly.
> >
> > As I see, during the last two years, the VB.NET compiler code has
> > essentially evolved on two fronts: 1) Merging patches or features from
> > the mcs core which was added to mcs since the mbas fork 2) Introducing
> > VB.NET specific semantics.
> >
> > With the new approach 1) the effort spent on (1) gets reduced
> > significantly 2) The trees could be get in sync so that pulling in
> > partial classes or generics supoort in feature would be relatively a
> > simple task. 3) It opens up possibility of a single mammoth code base
> > that can be built to either C# compiler (mcs/gmcs) or VB.NET compiler
> > (bmcs). Or atleast it will show up avenues for building a reusable
> > code emission library from the current compiler for building new .NET
> > langauge compilers.
> >
> > I would be spending some time pampering this new beast. It is going to
> > be essentially a night job and develop in bits and pieces.
> >
> > If the community sees a value in this experiment and (IS interested in
> > co-operatuing with me) I am willing to get in a new subdir mcs/bmcs in
> > to svn.
> >
> > Otherwise I can privately nurture my efforts and release it to the
> > community once it is a sufficiently evolved.
> >
> > I invite views from the community. (I would be particularly happy to
> > hear from anyone who is willing to co-opearte with this effort of
> > mine.)
> >
> > With best wishes for the new year 2005,
> > Jambunathan K.
>