I have just been reading through some of the white papers & examples from [Microsoft "Roslyn"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Roslyn) and the concept seems very interesting. From what I can tell, it opens up the black box that is the compiler and provides an interface that we can use to get information and metrics about code written in Visual Studio.

Roslyn also appears to have the ability to "script" code and compile/execute it on the fly (similar to the CodeDom) but I have only come across limited uses for that type of functionality in my experience.

Whilst the code analysis & metrics element is an interesting space...it is something that has been around for a very long time and there are numerous providers that have already invested a lot of money into code analysis & refactoring tools (e.g. ReSharper, CodeRush, nCover, etc) and they do a pretty good job of it!

Why would any company go out of their way to implement something that can be provided at a fraction of a cost through buying a license for one of the existing tools?

Maybe I have missed some key functionality of the Roslyn project that places it outside the domain of the mentioned tools...