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Greg Young [MVP]

I Want Spec#

Scott Hanselman has recently put up a new hanselminutes of an interview with the spec# team. This interview was done at altdotnet; one of the key points of discussion both in general and in the interview was "how can we get spec#?". The simple answer is we have to want spec# and Microsoft needs to know that we want it. The more people who want it the more likely we are to get it or to get it in pieces. The best way for them to know is for us to tell them!

Let's give Mike and the whole spec# team the best compliment possible on their research; asking for it to become integrated in products and/or to be available with a commercial license!

I want verifiable software...

I WANT SPEC#!

Here is a reusable bumper sticker for your blog to make it easier to express how you feel.

Drop a note here so I can try to keep track of people!

If you don't know about spec# now may be a great time to watch the recent presentation from altdotnet

Published Apr 28 2008, 06:23 PM by Greg

Comments

Matthew Podwysocki said:

During ALT.NET Open Spaces, Seattle, I spent a bit of time with Rustan Leino and Mike Barnett from the

# April 28, 2008 7:21 PM

Matthew Podwysocki's Blog said:

During ALT.NET Open Spaces, Seattle, I spent a bit of time with Rustan Leino and Mike Barnett from the

# April 28, 2008 7:24 PM

Mike Strobel said:

A past informal conversation with a member of the C# team has left me with the impression that we're unlikely to see Spec#-style language support for DbC constructs in a future version of C#. It seems we're more likely to see DbC support in the form of a framework that works across .NET languages, coupled with some sort of static analysis support. While I would naturally love to see C# include native DbC support (or Spec# to include the C# 3.0 language features), I'd be pretty reasonably content with solid DbC support in the form of assertion methods and attributes. On a side note, I've created a feature request on the ReSharper issue tracker to add realtime/compile-time static analysis of DbC constructs in a future release of ReSharper. I posted a link in the R# community forums, so anyone who's interested is encouraged to vote for the feature.

# April 28, 2008 11:20 PM

Greg said:

Mike, I have had those same conversations ...

Actually I think some of them are in that video ... if not they are in the interview I did with Mike and Rustan for infoq.

Cheers,

Greg

# April 28, 2008 11:24 PM

back round check said:

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# April 29, 2008 12:13 AM

deerchao said:

Iwantverifiablesoftware...IWANTSPEC#!Andofcourse,Iwantbeauty(ah,yeah,singulare,oneise...

# April 29, 2008 12:27 AM

deerchao said:

I love Spec# and want it too.

# April 29, 2008 12:41 AM

Fredrik Normén said:

I will copy Greg Young ! I also want Spec#. If you also wants it, please let Microsoft know about it

# April 29, 2008 12:45 AM

Cornerstones utvecklarblogg said:

I will copy Greg Young ! I also want Spec#. If you also wants it, please let Microsoft know about it.

# April 29, 2008 12:48 AM

Eyad Salamin said:

I love it and want it.

# April 29, 2008 4:21 AM

Steven said:

Love it, need it, want it!

# April 29, 2008 7:02 AM

RhysC said:

I want it now!

# April 29, 2008 7:19 AM

Peter Ritchie said:

Yes, DbC in C# as soon as possible!

# April 29, 2008 9:06 AM

Todd D said:

want it, want it, want it! it'd be so much better not to have DbC stuff infiltrating my code at runtime

# April 29, 2008 9:34 AM

Mike Strobel said:

Greg,

That's reassuring to hear. At least it sounds like we'll end up with some form of DbC support. I actually did some experimenting a couple weeks back using the Spec#-generated attributes in C# code and running Boogie against it as a post-build process. It actually worked pretty well, but the expression syntax for those attributes is pretty cumbersome and not very practical to use outside of Spec#.

Cheers,

Mike

# April 29, 2008 10:20 AM

Mike Strobel said:

I forgot to mention that the Nemerle language now has partial support for Spec#-style contracts, but it does not yet have static analysis support. There's also no support for expression trees or LINQ as far as I know. Maybe some kind soul with a nice chunk of spare time would be interested in bringing the language up to speed?

# April 29, 2008 10:23 AM

Thomas Danecker said:

Also want to have spec#!!!

# April 29, 2008 12:10 PM

Charlie Calvert said:

I thought someone from the C# team should chime in here and let you know we are following this thread and that we are aware of the interest in Spec#. There is nothing to announce at this time, but I wanted to let you know that you are being heard. I've seen a few emails going back and forth about this, and of course their are Spec# fans on our team who share your passion for this subject. - Charlie

# April 29, 2008 1:26 PM

Kim Hamilton said:

It's well known that BCL wants Spec# so we can get some DBC goodness in the framework libraries! (I wouldn't mind having that t-shirt too...)

# April 29, 2008 2:58 PM

Greg said:

Kim: BCL + DbC + compile time proving = me very very happy :)

btw: its good to see that you have been moving that direction with new development using Microsoft.Contracts.

# April 29, 2008 3:02 PM

Jeff Tucker said:

I want spec# and the chick wearing the T-shirt blogged: http://agilology.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-can-haz-spec-kthx.html

# April 29, 2008 3:20 PM

DotNetKicks.com said:

You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com

# April 30, 2008 3:47 AM

Matthew Podwysocki said:

I know the title might catch a few people off guard, but let me explain. Side effecting functions, for

# April 30, 2008 11:58 PM

Matthew Podwysocki's Blog said:

I know the title might catch a few people off guard, but let me explain. Side effecting functions, for

# May 1, 2008 12:00 AM

Jan Van Ryswyck said:

# May 1, 2008 2:40 PM

Kyle Lanser said:

Just read a couple of the PDF's on http://research.microsoft.com/specsharp/ and DbC looks awesome! Need to get more people talking about this!

# May 1, 2008 4:57 PM

Jason Stangroome said:

I want Spec#!

# May 5, 2008 8:21 AM

Hendry Luk said:

I am wondering if there has been any work done on compile-time DBC based on C# attribute? How possible (or impossible) is it?

# May 7, 2008 2:02 AM

Hendry Luk said:

The way i see it, spec# is the exact opposite of ruby. It's quite fenomenal the recent hype about Ruby, enthusiasm to get similar duck-typing-ness on CLR, while at the same time we're also fancying spec#. Im not a fans of Ruby to begin with. So, go spec#!!

# May 7, 2008 2:56 AM

Greg said:

Henry you are correct dynamic languages and compile time proving are pretty much mutually exclusive.

I had a great chat with the Mike and Rustan from the spec# team and John Lam from the IronRuby team on how the two can play nicely together since each has its own strengths and weaknesses. I recorded this chat and should be putting it out sometime soon.

# May 7, 2008 1:19 PM