Microsoft Opens Up C# Standardization Work -- Visual Studio Magazine

Microsoft Opens Up C# Standardization Work

By David Ramel
04/08/2021

C# standardization is now being carried out in an open source GitHub repo that details ongoing work to document the standard for the latest C# language versions.

The goal of the move, which brings the work out into the open under the direction of the .NET Foundation, is a more accurate standard for those versions. The foundation is an independent, non-profit organization supporting an open-source ecosystem around the .NET platform.

"Moving the standards work into the open, under the .NET Foundation, makes it easier for standardization work," Microsoft said in an April 5 blog post. "Everything from language innovation and feature design through implementation and on to standardization now takes place in the open."

The new GitHub repo is a huge list of just about everything to do with C#, from tokens to statements to namespaces. For example, here's part of the section on keywords:

**[Click on image for larger view.]** C# Keywords *(source: GitHub).*

Proposed C# language standards will still be proposed by the ECMA C# standards committee (TC-49-TG2), with the change effectively just making the work more transparent by providing a public working space for the committee. That means C# developers can pose public questions to the language design team, compiler implementers and the standards committee.

"You can see work in progress on the standard text for C# 6," Microsoft said. "This work merges the draft spec currently hosted in the csharplang repository with the current C# 5.0 standard text. Work on incorporating the C# 7 features is taking place as well. See the C# 7 draft branch for progress."

Because Microsoft earlier open sourced C# compilers and subsequently split off another GitHub repo for the innovation and evolution of C#, there are now three such repos dedicated to the company's flagship programming language:

dotnet/csharplang: language design and evolution efforts
dotnet/roslyn: the implementation of the compilers and related tools
dotnet/csharpstandard: the creation of the standard text that describes the C# language

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

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