Feature request: Support for Visual Basic?

[Falthazar]

Is there any planned support for VB.net?

I'm still learning about programming and especially the .NET framework in general, but doesn't Roslyn already support VB.net? What would it take (skills and effort wise) to add basic Visual Basic support to Omnisharp?
As in, is it beginner with lots of time level? Or is it like a complete re-write of Omnisharp?

[DustinCampbell]

There are no plans, no. It is something that could be done, but there aren't a lot of requests for it. There is also an issue tracking this in the C# for VS Code repo (omnisharp-vscode): dotnet/vscode-csharp#25. However, there're are only a handful of votes.

Yes, Roslyn supports VB.NET, so support could certainly be added to OmniSharp and it wouldn't require a rewrite. However, it would need a champion from the community to take the work on.

[Falthazar]

I'm thinking of taking the dive and seeing if it's within my skillset now, or in the far far future. I'm somewhere between beginner and intermediate I think.

I haven't had time to look at what would need to be done, but I guess my question is:
Besides knowing C# and getting familiar with Omnisharp and Roslyn code, what else would I need to learn before I get started? Will I need to learn about "lower-level" programming functions like how debuggers and compilers work? Or is it going to be more like integrating existing Roslyn APIs into Omnisharp?

[DustinCampbell]

You shouldn't need to worry about compilers/debuggers. With a few exceptions, OmniSharp communicates with Roslyn via public APIs.

[david-driscoll]

@Falthazar at a high level, basically you need to replicate all the services / handlers that omnisharp implements for C#, to use the VB Api's.

An example is https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-roslyn/blob/master/src/OmniSharp.Roslyn.CSharp/Services/Navigation/FindUsagesService.cs and changing LanguageNames.CSharp to be LanguageNames.VisualBasic

[Laptop765]

I took a look at OmniSharp and had a brief chat in Slack and it sounds like it's a bit of an undertaking. There's some info in the linked portion of the Slack for anyone interested.

As an alternative I stumbled upon icsharpcode/CodeConverter and it's been doing a solid job of converting files so far so I figured I'd mention it for anyone else interested in giving it a shot.