Distributed Refactoring #.NET #Delphi

Eric Gunnerson (Program Manager on Microsoft's C# team) has been blogging about his experiences at JavaOne. Since I'm not a Java programmer, I've just been skimming, but I noticed one bit that was extremely interesting:

One of the cool things that JBuilder does is distributed refactorings. This allows you to save a refactoring, ship it with a new version of your product, and then allow your client to apply that refactoring on their code to easily migrate to the new version.

One word: Wow.

Five more words: When can C# have that?? It'd be a fabulous feature for Delphi, too, especially if it was available for both .NET and Win32.

Just imagine if third-party control authors were free to refactor their public interfaces, and get rid of the cruft that invariably creeps in over time. Poorly-named properties, refactorings that move methods onto other classes... and being able to just do the refactoring, ship the new version of your control, and have everyone's code automatically be brought up to date. Wow...