[Mono-dev] VB libraries and compiler status?

[Miguel de Icaza]

Hello,

>             I have some changes and additions to the
> Microsoft.VisualBasic libraries.
>             It looks like other than a few changes in the last week,
> neither the libraries nor the compiler have been worked on in months.
>             Are these still being developed?
>             Who is currently in charge?

Novell is no longer working on the VB.NET compiler.  It was originally
one of the planned features for Mono 1.2, but we we decided to retarget
our efforts.

There were a number of reasons for this decision:

* MBas became increasingly hard to maintain.  mbas was based on
  a very old version of mcs, and did not get any of the later
  improvements in mcs.

* The runtime is still there, and its today probably the most important
  piece, as it allows existing VB.NET applications to run on Mono.

* ASP.NET 2.0 now supports pre-compiled sites, so a major reason for 
  implementing VB.NET for us is gone (running the resulting VB pages).

I would still like to have a complete VB compiler, but considering
everything else we have to do and the above considerations, an open
source VB.NET compiler is not something Novell will be devoting
resources to right now.

On the other hand, there is a group called MonoBasic.  They are funded
in Brazil to do some work on the compiler.  Every once in a while they
will commit some code, but it does not seem to be very steady.

Miguel