IoC component registration

Question

How do you list your referenced solution assemblies for IoC registration? I was really tired of typing something strange as new [] { typeof(SomeType).Assembly, ... }. What do you think about the following approach?

Use case:

class Program
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 foreach (var a in Solution.Assemblies)
 Console.WriteLine(a); 
 }
}

Where Solution.Assemblies is:

public static class Solution 
{
 static IEnumerable<string> AssemblyNames => new[] {
 "ValueCache", "ValueCache.Tests", "LazyProxies", "ConsoleApplication1", "ClassLibrary1"
 };
 public static IEnumerable<Assembly> Assemblies => AssemblyNames
 .Select(an => Load(an))
 .Where(a => a != null);
 [DebuggerHidden]
 static Assembly Load(string assemblyName)
 {
 try
 {
 return Assembly.Load(new AssemblyName(assemblyName));
 }
 catch
 {
 return null;
 }
 }
}

... being generated by Solution.tt file:

<#@ template debug="false" hostSpecific="true" language="C#" #>
<#@ output extension=".cs" #>
<#@ assembly name="System.Core" #>
<#@ assembly name="EnvDte" #>
<#@ import namespace="System" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.IO" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Diagnostics" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Linq" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections.Generic" #> 
<#@ import namespace="System.Reflection" #> 
<#@ import namespace="EnvDTE" #> 
<#@ import namespace="Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating" #>
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace SolutionConfiguration
{
 public static class Solution 
 {
 static IEnumerable<string> AssemblyNames => new[] {
 <#= String.Join(", ", from name in new SolutionAssemblyNames(Host)
 select $"\"{name}\"") #>
 };
 public static IEnumerable<Assembly> Assemblies => AssemblyNames
 .Select(an => Load(an))
 .Where(a => a != null);
 [DebuggerHidden]
 static Assembly Load(string assemblyName)
 {
 try
 {
 return Assembly.Load(new AssemblyName(assemblyName));
 }
 catch
 {
 return null;
 }
 }
 }
}
<#+
 class SolutionAssemblyNames : IEnumerable<string>
 {
 public SolutionAssemblyNames(ITextTemplatingEngineHost host)
 {
 Host = host;
 }
 public IEnumerator<string> GetEnumerator() => Assemblies.GetEnumerator();
 IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() => GetEnumerator();
 IEnumerable<string> Assemblies => Projects
 .Select(p => p?.Properties?.Item("AssemblyName")?.Value as string)
 .Distinct().Where(a => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(a));
 IEnumerable<Project> Projects => VisualStudio.Solution.Projects.OfType<Project>();
 DTE VisualStudio => (Host as IServiceProvider).GetService(typeof(DTE)) as DTE;
 ITextTemplatingEngineHost Host { get; }
 }
#>

Answer 1

This is a fascinating solution. I kept looking at it and thinking "There must be an easier way!" but every possible solution I came up with had a fatal flaw.

All I really have, then, is nitpicking:

public static IEnumerable<Assembly> Assemblies => AssemblyNames
 .Select(an => Load(an))

Can be simplified to:

public static IEnumerable<Assembly> Assemblies => AssemblyNames
 .Select(Load)

SolutionAssemblyNames is looking fairly dense. I'd add 1 line of whitespace between each property to make it a bit more readable.