X-Git-Url: http://wien.tomnetworks.com/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fc-sharp;h=ddf6844701f73790dda4c60efec685c56f340860;hb=1579736ef224c3a2969dddabff464e5c3fac1ede;hp=d90a01602f7d3761693961ddbfee17913ed1839e;hpb=8d1912017aabfb274d5a47d663b46dd4d0c12763;p=mono.git

diff --git a/doc/c-sharp b/doc/c-sharp
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--- a/doc/c-sharp
+++ b/doc/c-sharp
@@ -1,23 +1,52 @@
 * MCS: The Ximian C# compiler
 
-	MCS is currently able to compile many C# programs (there is
-	a test suite included that you can use).  
+	The Mono C# compiler is considered feature complete at this
+	point and relatively mature.  MCS is able to compile itself
+	and many more C# programs (there is a test suite included that
+	you can use).  It is routinely used to compile Mono, roughly
+	half a million lines of C# code.
 
-	We are in feature completion mode right now.  There are still
-	a couple of areas that are not covered by the Mono compiler, but
-	they are very very few at this point.
+* Pending tasks
 
-	The compiler can compile itself, but the resulting image contains
-	a few errors that we are quickly fixing.
+	There are a few known bugs in the Mono C# compiler, but
+	they are very very few at this point,
+	you can also browse the MCS <a href="http://bugzilla.ximian.com/buglist.cgi?product=Mono%2FMCS&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&email1=&emailtype1=substring&emailassigned_to1=1&email2=&emailtype2=substring&emailreporter2=1&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&short_desc=&short_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&long_desc_type=substring&bug_file_loc=&bug_file_loc_type=substring&keywords=&keywords_type=anywords&op_sys_details=&op_sys_details_type=substring&version_details=&version_details_type=substring&cmdtype=doit&newqueryname=&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&form_name=query">bugs</a> from Bugzilla.
 
-	MCS was able to parse itself on April 2001, MCS compiled itself
-	for the first time on December 28 2001.  We hope to have the compiler
-	self hosting on Linux by the end of January.
-
-	A test suite is being built currently to track the progress of
+	A test suite is maintained to track the progress of
 	the compiler and various programs are routinely compiled and
 	ran.
 
+** Slides
+
+	Slides for the Mono C# Compiler presentation at .NET ONE are
+	available <a
+	href="http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/slides-europe-nov-2002/Mono_C_Sharp_Overview_1007.sxi">here</a>
+	in StarOffice format.
+
+** Obtaining MCS
+
+	The Mono C# compiler is part of the `mcs' module in the Mono CVS
+	you can get it from our <a href="anoncvs.html">Anonymous CVS</a> server,
+	or you can get nightly <a href="download.html">download page</a>.
+
+** Running MCS
+
+	MCS is written in C# and uses heavily the .NET APIs.  MCS runs
+	on Linux with the Mono runtime and on Windows with both the
+	.NET runtime and the Mono runtime.
+
+** Reporting Bugs in MCS
+
+	When you report a bug, try to provide a small test case that would
+	show the error so we can include this as part of the Mono C# regression
+	test suite.
+
+	If the bug is an error or a warning that we do not flag, write
+	a sample program called `csXXXX.cs' where XXXX is the code number
+	that is used by the Microsoft C# compiler that illustrates the 
+	problem.  That way we can also do regression tests on the invalid
+	input.  
+
 ** Phases of the compiler
 
 	The compiler has a number of phases:
@@ -51,46 +80,42 @@
 
 		* Code generation: The code generation is done through
 		  the System.Reflection.Emit API.
-
 	</ul>
 
-<a name="tasks">
-** Current pending tasks
-
-	Simple tasks:
+** CIL Optimizations.
 
-	<ul>
-		* Extern declarations are missing.
-	</ul>
+	The compiler performs a number of simple optimizations on its input:
+	constant folding (this is required by the C# language spec) and 
+	can perform dead code elimination.
 
-	Larger tasks:
+	Other more interesting optimizations like hoisting are not possible
+	at this point since the compiler output at this point does not
+	generate an intermediate representation that is suitable to
+	perform basic block computation.  
 
-	<ul>
-		* Finish constant folding, it is complete enough
-		  to compile itself, but it is lacking error reporting.
+	Adding an intermediate layer to enable the basic block
+	computation to the compiler should be a simple task, but we
+	are considering having a generic CIL optimizer.  Since all the
+	information that is required to perform basic block-based
+	optimizations is available at the CIL level, we might just skip
+	this step altogether and have just a generic IL optimizer that
+	would perform hoisting on arbitrary CIL programs, not only
+	those produced by MCS.  
 
-		* Redo the way we deal with built-in operators.
-	</ul>
+	If this tool is further expanded to perform constant folding
+	(not needed for our C# compiler, as it is already in there)
+	and dead code elimination, other compiler authors might be
+	able to use this generic CIL optimizer in their projects
+	reducing their time to develop a production compiler. 
 
-	Interesting and Fun hacks to the compiler:
+** History
 
-	<ul>
-
-		* Jay does not work correctly with `error'
-		  productions, making parser errors hard to point.  It
-		  would be best to port the Bison-To-Java compiler to
-		  become Bison-to-C# compiler. 
-		  
-		  Nick Drochak has started a project on SourceForge for this.
-		  You can find the project at: <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/jb2csharp/">
-		  http://sourceforge.net/projects/jb2csharp/</a>
-
-		* Semantic Analysis: Return path coverage and
-		  initialization before use coverage are two great
-		  features of C# that help reduce the number of bugs
-		  in applications.  It is one interesting hack.
+	MCS was able to parse itself on April 2001, MCS compiled itself
+	for the first time on December 28 2001.  MCS became self hosting
+	on January 3rd, 2002. 
 
-	</ul>
+	The Mono Runtime and the Mono execution engine were able to make
+	our compiler self hosting on March 12, 2002.
 
 ** Questions and Answers