Re: [DotGNU]C#

[Boris Kolar]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Carrera" <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: 26. March 2002 4:35
Subject: [DotGNU]C#


> Hello,
>
> I was hoping that someone could give me an opinion on the C# language.  Is
> it a good language?

NO. It's just Microsoft's rewrite of java with some improvements. In my 
opinion, there is currently no good language (I know them
all: Eiffel, Ada, Oberon, ...). My favorites are Eiffel and Sather, but I use 
Java in all serious projects (for now).

>
> I mean, if it wasn't necessary for .NET, if it wasn't made my Microsoft,
> etc.  How does the language stand on its own merits?

No language is "necessary" for .NET, because .NET is quite similar to Java 
virtual machine. Every language for .NET can be written
for JVM or native code as well. C# language is Java + some improvements, 
ignoring achievements like "design by contract" (Eiffel),
"acpect-oriented programming" (AspectJ), logic programming(Prolog),...

>
> I'm sure that there are people here who can give an educated opinion on
> whether C# is a good language or not.
>
> As for what exactly makes a good language, I hope that the experts in this
> list can tell me.  I figure that a good language makes a good attempt at
> being easy to use and learn and still provide powerful tools.

Good language is not enough. Language also needs to be popular, have lots of 
libraries, and it's very desirable to have a free
compiler (free as "Free Software"). As for the language, the most desirable 
features are:
- 100% type safety (C#, Java, Oberon, Ada95 all have this feature)
- small, but powerful set of language features
- good readability
- design by contract support, exceptions
- multiple inheritance, "reverse" inheritance (somtimes called adoption)
- generics

There is a very powerful language Sather (http://www.gnu.org/software/sather/) 
where you can learn some powerful language features.
There is also a quite powerful extension to Java, called Kiev 
(http://forestro.com/kiev/kiev.html). Also see Languages for JVM for
more interesting languages 
(http://grunge.cs.tu-berlin.de/~tolk/vmlanguages.html).

Anyway, C# will probably be a popular language, so it's a good idea to learn 
it. And it's defenitely better than C++, Java, Visual
basic, or Pascal.

>
> Thanks for entertaining my questions.
>
> Daniel.
>
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