X-Git-Url: http://wien.tomnetworks.com/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=web%2Fc-sharp;h=ddf6844701f73790dda4c60efec685c56f340860;hb=9d93ddc5daf9a96e7fcd5d9ef7fac0ddba68feb9;hp=c11225d07e9129597848f351efaa9d20d1d823ab;hpb=2231eaa24780a6cfcf70abf5273e7d2920cc409c;p=mono.git

diff --git a/web/c-sharp b/web/c-sharp
index c11225d07e9..ddf6844701f 100644
--- a/web/c-sharp
+++ b/web/c-sharp
@@ -1,15 +1,51 @@
 * MCS: The Ximian C# compiler
 
-	MCS began as an experiment to learn the features of C# by
-	writing a large C# program.  MCS is currently able to parse C#
-	programs and create an internal tree representation of the
-	program.  MCS can parse itself.  
+	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.
 
-	Work is progressing quickly on various fronts in the C#
-	compiler.  Recently I started using the System.Reflection API
-	to load system type definitions and avoid self-population of
-	types in the compiler and dropped my internal Type
-	representation in favor of using the CLI's System.Type.  
+* Pending tasks
+
+	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.
+
+	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
 
@@ -42,60 +78,44 @@
 		  have to postpone this decision until the above steps
 		  are finished.
 
-		* Code generation: nothing done so far, but I do not
-		  expect this to be hard, as I will just use
-		  System.Reflection.Emit to generate the code. 
-	
-	</ul>
-
-<a name="tasks">
-** Current pending tasks
-
-	Simple tasks:
-
-	<ul>
-		* Array declarations are currently being ignored, 
-
-		* PInvoke declarations are not supported.
-
-		* Pre-processing is not supported.
-
-		* Attribute declarations and passing currently ignored.
-
-		* Compiler does not pass around line/col information from tokenizer for error reporting.
-
-		* 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 (bjepson@oreilly.com
-		  might have more information)
+		* Code generation: The code generation is done through
+		  the System.Reflection.Emit API.
 	</ul>
 
-	Interesting and Fun hacks to the compiler:
+** CIL Optimizations.
 
-	<ul>
-		* Finishing the JB port from Java to C#.  If you are
-		  interested in working on this, please contact Brian
-		  Jepson (bjepson at oreilly d-o-t com).
+	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.
 
-		  More on JB at: <a href="http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~dennis/software/jb.html">
-		  http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~dennis/software/jb.html</a>
+	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.  
 
-		  JB will allow us to move from the Berkeley Yacc
-		  based Jay to a Bison-based compiler (better error
-		  reporting and recovery).
+	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.  
 
-		* 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.
+	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. 
 
-		* TypeRefManager.  This exists currently in its infancy only. 
+** History
 
-		* Enum resolutions: it is another fun hack, as enums can be defined 
-		  in terms of themselves (<tt>enum X { a = b + 1, b = 5 }</tt>). 
+	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
 
@@ -123,6 +143,10 @@ Q: If your C# compiler is written in C#, how do you plan on getting
    We will do this through an implementation of the CLI Virtual
    Execution System for Unix (our JIT engine). 
 
+   Our JIT engine is working for the purposes of using the compiler.
+   The supporting class libraries are being worked on to fully support
+   the compiler.
+
 Q: Do you use Bison?
 
 A: No, currently I am using Jay which is a port of Berkeley Yacc to
@@ -181,6 +205,5 @@ Q: Why are you writing a JIT engine instead of a front-end to GCC?
 A: The JIT engine and runtime engine will be able to execute CIL
    executables generated on Windows.
 
-
 You might also want to look at the <a href="faq.html#gcc">GCC</a>
 section on the main FAQ