Boo is cool. Extending the compiler is very cool but I’m worried about the mainstream applicability of the technique :-)

Andrew.

Sure Ruby is nice, however we can also have this in .NET when using the Boo language :)

using disposableObject = ObjectImplementingIDisposable():
…do something

boo having an extensible compiler, it is implemented as an AST macro like this ( [| ... |] constructs are used for meta-programming in Boo) :

macro using:

expansion = using.Block

for expression as Expression in reversed(using.Arguments):

temp = ReferenceExpression(”__using${_context.AllocIndex()}__”)

assignment = [| $temp = $expression as System.IDisposable |].withLexicalInfoFrom(expression)

expansion = [|

$assignment

try:

$expansion

ensure:

if $temp is not null:

$temp.Dispose()

$temp = null

|]

return expansion