True Programming Language Independent IDE

27. August 2004
Comments (1)

I watch a video on http://channel9.msdn.com about how we will be able to mix C++, C# and VB.NET code files within the same project in Visual Studio 2005. Watch the video here: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=19445

I have an idea to take this one step further. It would be cool if the IDE would be able to convert C#, VB.NET and C++.NET code to any of the others. This way a VB.NET developer could load a C# application, edit in VB.NET, then save it back to C#. Then a C++.NET developer could load the the same C# application, edit in C++.NET, then save it back to C#. Then finally the C# developer could edit the app in C#. You could have three developers (one VB.NET, one C# and one C++ developer) work on the same project and they would never have to know the syntax of any of the other language to edit any of the code in the application. This way you could achieve true language independance.

Now wouldn't that be AWESOME??

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Kalyan
Kalyan
8/27/2004 2:17:00 AM #
Actual language independance couldn't probably happen because languages have so many differences between them.  Seems simple enough if you have a parser instead of translating to bytecode, assembly (or whatever lower level logic representation)  you have it translate to another language.  This would only work if different languages both had completely equal sets of possible operations.  Basically if C# does something  that C++ can't do, you have to rewrite the C# code to be compatible.  If I write a Java program and relax your inheritence relationships somehow to work with C++, I just stopped using Java's advantages.  However if you are just talking about simple operations and have just syntactical differences then you can translate.

for example
dim varA
is compatible with my $varA
but dim varA in C++ would be a WTF.  it doesn't know if it's an integer,character, or whatever.

I'm tired and rambling, I hope you understand that.
Check this out.

http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/~devanbu/dp.tex.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/~devanbu/dp.tex.pdf">http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/~devanbu/dp.tex.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://seclab.cs.ucdavis.edu/~devanbu/dp.tex.pdf

-K
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