[Mono-list] some questions?

[Fergus Henderson]

On 30-Jul-2001, Adam Treat <manybooby@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> --- Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
> > There are different levels of interoperability.
> > 	(a) just generate IL
> > 	(b) be a CLS "consumer"
> > 	(c) be a CLS "extender"
> > 	(d) be able to produce components with *any* CLS-compliant
> > 	    component interface.
> > 	(e) consume CodeDom trees.
> > 	(f) produce CodeDom trees.
> > 	(g) generate *verifiable* IL

I forgot one:

	(h) integrate into Visual Studio

	    This can be further decomposed into different levels
	    of integration into VS:
		- basic makefile support (building and executing programs)
		- support for parsing error message
		- syntax highlighting
		- debugger line number support
		- etc. etc.

> > So when you hear all the hype about how language XYZ is a
> > ".NET language", make sure you ask which of these different
> > things are supported.
> 
> Well I can't say that I understand all that you are saying but I do
> understand that "the magic" is there somewhere and that the common
> language runtime is much more complicated than I had thought.
>
> I was under the impression that a language could be dropped into .NET
> without significant modification.  I see that is not the case.

I think this is a case where Henderson's law applies:

	Henderson's law: it's always more complicated than you think,
	even if you take into account Henderson's law.

	(With apologies to Hofstadter ;-)

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
The University of Melbourne         |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.