I haven't directly worked on Roslyn (although I work in another area in Cloud and Enterprise) but my understanding is that by providing its client an abstract r

I haven't directly worked on Roslyn (although I work in another area in Cloud and Enterprise) but my understanding is that by providing its client an abstract representation on semantic C# source, Roslyn allows applications like this to be developed. If a traditional compiler has an API of "source files and configuration flags in, object files out", the Roslyn API is completely different. Roslyn is about designing and providing a semantic API over C# language analysis and compiler services. http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=230702 http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=230702 Some of the features of the reference source website enabled by Roslyn's semantic understanding of symbols (assemblies, namespaces, types, members) are color-coding, search, browse, jump-to-definition, and deep-linking. For example, I can deep-link to part of WPF like so: http://referencesource-beta.microsoft.com/#PresentationFramework http://referencesource-beta.microsoft.com/#PresentationFrame... I can see which assemblies depend on it, which assemblies it depends on, and browse the source of the assembly in a tree view either by source file or by namespace -> type -> member name.