COmega preview release!!

http://weblogs.asp.net/mdavey/archive/2004/07/14/183442.aspx

I just found this link last night. COmega is looking pretty darn awesome. If you're hesitant to download it don't be. The installer plugs COmega right into VS.NET 2003 and there are plenty of sample apps to get you going. Amazingly enough you don't need the 2.0 framework for this.

It's very interesting to see how COmega is kind of a testing ground for some of the features that are coming in C# 2.0 (e.g. iterators). Also, judging from some of the remarks Anders made about C# 3.0 in this video, you can see how some of the features in COmega may be making their way to C# 3.0.

It will be very interesting to see how this thing evolves over the next  5 years. Will COmega just morph into the latest version of C#? Will it be launched as a full blown language unto itself as part of the framework along side C#? Maybe C# will cherry pick the parts that it can bring in without completly changing the C# language and COmega will continue on as its own language. Who knows. :)

One of the things that seems ripe for bringing into C# is the “stream operator“ (is that what its called?).

int* FromTo(int a, int b)
{
    for (int i=a; i<b; i++)
        return yield i;
}

The int* is really a shorthand for IEnumerable<int>. This seems very similar to C# 2's int? to represent Nullable<int>.

Anyhoo, thats all for now. Go download it and play with it as much as you can. You will not regret it. And please post every thing you find that is cool.