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The CLR Sources

I have no idea why this isn't in much wider circulation, but this is huge.

ScottGu has announced that Microsoft is Releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries.

I am disappointed to see that even in the tiny source code samples that he has in the post I have violent disagreements (they speak about sealing stuff, which I have serious objection to).

This hopefully means a lot less ReflectorDebugging, although I am not sure about all the implication that this has.

Print | posted on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 7:04 PM

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 7:50 PM Ted Neward

Oren, it's NOT the CLR sources (meaning the source to the CLR itself), but the Framework Class Library sources that are being MS-RL'ed, and even at that only a subset are being made available. (I've posted a complete Q&A document Microsoft sent me over on my blog.)

Still, for those who are interested in the CLR sources, remember Rotor. :-)

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 8:55 PM Dan

Mmm... you can compile a special version of System.Web assembly with an additional constructor for HttpContext where you can inject a mock for HttpContext.Current property.

Doesn't it sound lovely ? :-)

TypeMock, be afraid... very afraid

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 9:00 PM Sean

I am not sure there are many implications beyond a lot less reflector debugging, since the license is for reference and not for someone to make and distribute custom versions of the .net Framwork thankfully.

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 9:06 PM Colin Ramsay

Dan: the license restricts you to debugging and not recompiling...

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 9:11 PM josh

I think its great news, but the implications are yet to be seen. Even more curious is the motivation for this.

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 9:47 PM pete w

I wonder if people will start to tailor their code more around the internals of a given CLR version and less around the exposed interfaces... the result? Higher dependency on a specific version of the runtime.

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 10:04 PM Eric Anderson

It seems like not everyone sees this as a good thing. While I am certainly not a conspiracy theorist, this would appear to be a good way for MS to get their claws into existing about source projects. To read more about that, check out what Steven Vaughn-Nichols has to say about it here:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2191754,00.asp

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 10:07 PM Jeff

So basically you can now see the code that is causing the bugs in the framework but you still can't do anything about it. They're clearly taunting me. . .

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/3/2007 10:11 PM Ayende Rahien

pete,
They already do.
I have a calendar control that does REALLY nasty things to System.Web.UI.Calendar.
Nasty as in this.GetType().GetField("_cantRecall").SetValue(5, this);

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# re: The CLR Sources 10/4/2007 8:12 AM Gian Maria

It could be interesting seeing some of the internals of the FCL :P, but actually is only a matter of not using reflector, I hope that the code will have some comment to make it clearer.

Alk.

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