Importance of C# (was Re: IronPython-0.6 is now available!)

[John]

> > OK! I am unaware of any. Can you point me to some.
> 
> Well, the one I "crashed" into was when I (by mistake) had compiled
> Microsoft's free ASP.Net container (Cassini) using version 1.0 of the
> framework, while my ASP.Net application was compiled using version 1.1
> of the framework. The result was that the container complained that it
> could not find the superclass for my page, since the 1.0 version of
> System.Web.HttpApplication is *not* the 1.1 version of
> System.Web.HttpApplication. It doid not even try to use it.
> 
> In Java, I *might* later have received a runtime exception about a
> missing method, if I actually used a method that was too "new".
> 
> (The solution to the Cassini problem was to manually write an
> application .config XML file that told it to use the 1.1 framework.
> This config file is also where you define any dependencies to
> particular versions of libraries; by default an application will use
> the newest available.)

That is more of a side effect of versioning features. Interesting case
anyway. I will keep that in mind.

> > Yes! Why do I have to list every jar file I use for the application in
> > the classpath? Why can't I just drop them in the same folder with the
> > app and expect the JVM to find them.
> 
> You can, if the jars are included in your "main jar"'s manifest's
> Class-Path value, e.g.
> 
> Main-Class: some.Application
> Class-Path: library.jar stuff.jar
> 
> Setting this up is, as in the case of .Net, a task for your IDE.

I had some facts wrong about .NET for that bit. I looked up after your
post and I know better now.

> I've used JBuilder and JDeveloper almost exclusively; I never could
> get my head around the "project-less" directory-focused and slow
> NetBeans.

OK! JBuilder does not look intimidating. I never got excited about the
JDeveloper's layout of tools.

> Because it hides the .Net complexities from the developer. Is that a
> good thing?

Hiding complexities from newbies and intermediate users is not a bad
idea. The project files are XML anyway. MS is mostly good at catering
to the needs of that market. Most Java tools don't seem to do that.
The impression I often get is Java is developed primarily for the
enterprise.

> > They seemed to compile Quake 2 fine.
> 
> How much of it ended up as unmanaged code? An application that runs
> outside of the managed container is not a .Net application.

I wasn't talking in just performance terms. I meant how the language
fit. But that's a good point. That would be interesting to know. Even
then, the prospect of being able to seemlessly add unmanaged code for
performance bottlenecks without the additional cognitive overhead of
integration API is nice.