Pro DLR in .NET 4

DLR stands for dynamic language runtime. Maybe you already know something about it and the reason you picked up this book is to learn how the DLR works and how to make use of it. If you haven’t heard of the DLR, you may be wondering whether it’s worth your time learning it. One reason people might regard the DLR as irrelevant to their work is that they think the DLR is for implementing new languages. And since most of us write programs to solve specific problems and very few of us implement languages, learning the DLR may not seem like a good investment. That was in fact my initial misconception when I first heard of the DLR, around the time it was announced in 2007. After some study, I quickly realized the broad applicability of the DLR in many areas of my day-to-day programming work.
Because of that potential misconception, I want to highlight some areas in which the DLR shines. The point I want to get across is that the DLR is not merely for running or implementing dynamic languages. It is also very useful for application scripting, meta-programming, aspect-oriented programming (AOP), building DSLs (domain-specific languages), unit test mocking, and a lot more. Instead of just throwing out those buzz words and iterating through them with dry discussions, I figure the best way to highlight the practical usefulness of the DLR is through some examples. So that’s what this chapter will do. Normally an introductory chapter like this has a Hello World example. We will have not just one, but four, plus some demonstrations. Continue Reading »
Pro DLR in .NET 4