Are all the additions to C# for version 4 (dynamic, code contracts etc) expected to run on the current .NET CLR, or is there a planned .NET upgrade as well?
I must admit, I'm not 100% convinced by such a sweeping statement... certainly .NET 4.0 will, but have you tried any of the non-dynamic C# 4.0 things on the VS2010 CTP? Unfortunately I don't have my CTP available at the moment...
Marc Gravell
2008-12-03 08:16:10
The compiler in VS RC1 compiles "dynamic" and named/optional arguments when I target 3.5.
Dan Finch
2010-04-02 19:01:07
+2
A:
You don't have to wait for 4.0 to use Code Contracts as it runs on .NET 3.5, the download link for the academic preview release is here.
Augusto Radtke
2008-12-03 03:22:21
Keep the license issues aside, it doesn't need 4.0 runtime to run, that's important and nice.
Augusto Radtke
2008-12-03 03:26:04
Wow, that's awesome. I'm been dying to try it out, but I haven't had time to setup a VS 2010 box.
Jonathan Allen
2008-12-03 07:31:30
+3
A:
Well, .NET 4.0 will require CLR 4.0; however, it is a little harder to answer what parts of C# 4.0 will work on .NET 2.0/3.x. We can hope that VS2010 will still be multi-targeting(I don't have the CTP "on me" so to speak, so I can't check...). But some of the language features don't seem hugely tied to the runtime (named parameters, some of the COM changes such as "ref") - so I can't think of a good reason why they wouldn't be available when talking to .NET 2.0/3.x. I haven't checked, though.
However, as with C# 3.0, some of the features are tied to the runtime - in particular dynamic.
I need to dig out the CTP and have another play, methinks...
Marc Gravell
2008-12-03 05:12:50
I agree, I can see why dynamic may need a clr update, but code contracts not so much
johnc
2008-12-03 05:19:54
Well, code-contracts will require the attributes themselves... and if they are housed in .NET 4.0 (which I suspect they are), you will probably need to target CLR 4.0.
Marc Gravell
2008-12-03 05:30:13
Although there's a version of code contracts running against .NET 3.5, of course...
Jon Skeet
2008-12-03 06:50:04