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silverlightdynamic-language-runtime

What ever happened to "Managed VBScript" & the VBx Compiler?


There was a flurry of posts on the web about "Managed VBScript", the DLR & VBx right after Mix07 but I've not seen anything about it since.

So, what is going on? Has it been dropped? Implemented?


Solution

  • MS decided to fold dynamic typing support into their existing languages (C# 4 and VB.NET 10) instead of creating yet another new language, so VBx was dropped.

    Managed JavaScript was also dropped (however, the developers were reassigned to work on Chakra, the ECMAScript engine of IE9), which means that of the original four DLR compilers (VBx, Managed JavaScript, IronRuby, IronPython), only IronPython and IronRuby survived. (Well, actually, there's some doubt about the latter, since while MS refuses to officially announce anything about IronRuby, they also have reassigned all developers to other projects, so that there is only one half-time developer (where "half-time" doesn't even mean "half-time on IronRuby" but "half-time on the DLR, IronPython and IronRuby together") inside MS left. The IronPython team was also reduced, which was for example responsible for the huge delay of the release of the IronPython tools for Visual Studio.)