Req5: unsafe and pointer support

[This post is part of a series, "wish-list for future versions of VB"]

 

IDEA: "unsafe" and pointer support. VB should support unsafe programming, like C#, with pointers and all that.

SCENARIO: Pointer support is useful for people who write marshallers and operating systems and device-drivers. It's also useful for people who want to operate on memory-buffers that they get from the operate system but without any copying involved.

 

Provisional evaluation from VB team: None of them feel like they're mainstream .NETish or VBish (or C#ish even). It would be a shame to twist the language as much as this would require, just to let it cover a small additional niche.