variable sharing on notebook created types

[novitk]

Version: 1.0.522904+cdfa48b2ea1a27dfe0f545c42a34fd3ec7119074

is there something fundamental why the below doesn't work? Due to the fact that vars are shared but their types are not?
It would be a killer feature, as you can test language interop quickly.
Thx, KN

#!fsharp
type U = One
let y = One
#!csharp
#!share --from fsharp y
y
Error: (1,1): error CS0103: The name 'y' does not exist in the current context

[jonsequitur]

Type U isn't defined in the C# kernel so I wouldn't expect this to work.

If that's why it's not working, the error message incorrect. There might be an exception being swallowed somewhere.

[jonsequitur]

As for whether sharing new types transparently should be supported, I'd say it makes intuitive sense. But it implies sharing the dependency graph from e.g. F# into C#, including NuGet packages. And in some cases the F# and C# kernels might already have conflicting versions loaded. So this gets complicated and also hard for people to reason about.

[novitk]

agreed, dependency walk is definitely "too hard and fragile".
How about non-transparent, i.e. explicit "#!share --from fsharp U"? Would this work, assuming stuff below U exists in both kernels?

[jonsequitur]

The type definition itself would need to be shared, which requires referencing the in-memory assembly where it was defined. That assembly's dependency graph transitively includes the previous submissions' dependency graphs. I don't think this would work around the problem.

Another approach could potentially be to transparently create an isomorphic type in C#, serialize the F# type, and deserialize it to the C# type. Of course this would break all references to specific instances.

Is there a specific thing you're trying to accomplish?