WARNING: This is a speculative post. Caveat emptor.

Last week, one of the VB MVPs asked on a private alias what our thinking was about VB10. As I kind of indicated in my previous entry, I don’t think we have a clear idea yet of what’s going to be on the table for the next rev—VB 2008 was kind of an aberration in that LINQ was in gestation long before VB 2005 even shipped. But I can say what’s at least on my mind:

  • Hosting or, more generally, opening up the compiler services to the outside world.
  • Decreasing lexical “noise” when looking at VB code.
  • Increasing the extensibility of the language so that it takes less work to extend the language and can be done by libraries (Ruby is an example of what I’m thinking of here, but only a general example).
  • Addressing UNDONE tasks from Orcas (object initializers, statement lambdas).
  • Addressing persistent annoyances (line continuations is a good example here).
  • Addressing whatever else comes up from the community as we release VB 2008.

I know that I’ve already added the usual caveats above, but I want to make double clear this is just what’s on my mind at the moment—in other words, things that I’m personally thinking about. These are not official team priorities, planned for the next rev, or anything like that. The next version could look radically different than the list above. I should also add that I mostly think about the language, so that’s why this list doesn’t talk about the IDE.

I’d be interested (in keeping with the last bullet point) what people might be specifically in for the next release. What’s at the top of your list these days?