Microsoft's C# (Sharp) & .NET -- A Heads Up

[Neil Hodgson]

> In case you haven't heard Microsoft is coming out with a massive new Web
> stratagy that, in part, uses a new language called C# (That sharp, like in
> music).  ...

   I read the intro and skimmed the language reference today. It doesn't
look like a bad language but it doesn't have anything that jumps out as a
good reason for moving to it. I'd call it a safer superset of C++. There are
some C++ features missing but apart from templates they are not very
important. And its the lack of a template or generic feature that I find
puzzling. The language strives for compile time type safety while allowing
the use of the generic 'object' type, but has no provision for creating new
type safe containers. Even Sun have realised that Java needs a template
equivalent.

   One thing I like is the type unification between basic types and objects.
Unlike Java's use of explicit box classes - Integer holding an int, etc, C#
allows arbitrary boxing of the basic types and structs as needed or by
casting: (object)value. You can not subclass the basic types.

   Its a lower level language than Python, and misses most of the dynamicity
that makes Python so good. OTOH, it will run faster.

    Neil