Metaprogramming in .NET

Summary

Metaprogramming in .NET is designed to help readers understand the basic concepts, advantages, and potential pitfalls of metaprogramming. It introduces core concepts in clear, easy-to-follow language and then it takes you on a deep dive into the tools and techniques you'll use to implement them in your .NET code. You'll explore plenty of real-world examples that reinforce key concepts. When you finish, you'll be able to build high-performance, metaprogramming-enabled software with confidence.

About the Technology

When you write programs that create or modify other programs, you are metaprogramming. In .NET, you can use reflection as well as newer concepts like code generation and scriptable software. The emerging Roslyn project exposes the .NET compiler as an interactive API, allowing compile-time code analysis and just-in-time refactoring.

About this Book

Metaprogramming in .NET is a practical introduction to the use of metaprogramming to improve the performance and maintainability of your code. This book avoids abstract theory and instead teaches you solid practices you'll find useful immediately. It introduces core concepts like code generation and application composition in clear, easy-to-follow language.

Written for readers comfortable with C# and the .NET framework—no prior experience with metaprogramming is required.

What's Inside

• Metaprogramming concepts in plain language
• Creating scriptable software
• Code generation techniques
• The Dynamic Language Runtime

About the Authors

Kevin Hazzard is a Microsoft MVP, consultant, teacher, and developer community leader in the mid-Atlantic USA. Jason Bock is an author, Microsoft MVP, and the leader of the Twin Cities Code Camp.

"An excellent way to start fully using the power of metaprogramming."—From the Foreword by Rockford Lhotka, Creator of the CSLA .NET Framework

Table of Contents

PART 1 DEMYSTIFYING METAPROGRAMMING
1. Metaprogramming concepts
2. Exploring code and metadata with reflection
PART 2 TECHNIQUES FOR GENERATING CODE
3. The Text Template Transformation Toolkit (T4)
4. Generating code with the CodeDOM
5. Generating code with Reflection.Emit
6. Generating code with expressions
7. Generating code with IL rewriting
PART 3 LANGUAGES AND TOOLS
8. The Dynamic Language Runtime
9. Languages and tools
10. Managing the .NET Compiler

Kevin Hazzard is a consultant, entrepreneur and Microsoft MVP based in Richmond, Virginia. He co-founded the Richmond Software Craftsmanship Group and runs the Richmond Code Camp. Kevin has served multiple terms on Virginia's Joint Commission on Technology and Science as an advisor to the Commonwealth's governors and legislatures.

Jason Bock is a Microsoft MVP and a principal consultant for Magenic. He is a leader of the Twin Cities Code Camp and runs the Twin Cities Languages User Group. Jason is the author of four books and many articles on software development.