Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: C# papers

Author:David Rothgery
Posted:6/26/2000; 9:53:51 AM
Topic:C# papers
Msg #:18101 (In response to 18099)
Prev/Next:18100 / 18102

I don't understand the point of C# at all. I was hoping, when I first saw reports of this, that C|Net's reporter had conflated new features of Visual Studio 7 with the old COOL rumors, and that the other reports were just cribbing off of C|Net. Unfortunately, that's not true.

It seems like they could have acheived 90% of the benefits of C# v. C++ by writing a good standard garbage collector for VC++, fully supporting the C++ standard, and getting a good STL implementation. Since STL and a good garbage collector also take care of most of the advantages of Java over C++, except for the much-vaunted platform independence, without requiring a language switch, I don't see why Microsoft didn't go this way. It's not likely that C# (or any new language Microsoft invents) will ever exist on non-Windows platforms.

Note to Microsoft's tools group: Windows developers use Visual C++ and Visual Basic to develop desktop applications and COM/COM+ components. Borland couldn't change that with Delphi (in many ways better than VB) or C++Builder (in many ways better than VC++). Sun couldn't change this with Java. And Microsoft won't change it with C#. It's difficult to get developers to change tools even in the same language and on the same platform. Changing languages for no good reason just isn't going to fly.

Besides, with the new features that are supposed to be added to Visual Basic in version 7, Microsoft has a powerful, easy to use, OO language that does garbage collection and the millions of VB, VBA, and VBScript/ASP developers out there, like me, already understand it.

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