So, Ive been livin in a cave with the talibananas for the last couple of years, and have missed whats the deal with C#. I understand that it was created by the great Satan, Microsoft. But what does that mean in terms of freedom of use? Do I have to pay a shitload of money to the evil empire just to use the friggin language? Or do I get a bill that will ruin me only AFTER I have distributed some sort of program developed with it? Or is the language only runable on computers infested by Windows? Or is it just like C++ (0nly less complicated) in that it is free for everybody (uh, did MS go commie on us?), la, la, la, la, laaaa!!? Or...uh...well, you get the blank picture in my mind, right? Fill it, please!

quote: Original post by _Danneman_
So, Ive been livin in a cave with the talibananas for the last couple of years, and have missed whats the deal with C#.

I understand that it was created by the great Satan, Microsoft. But what does that mean in terms of freedom of use?

Do I have to pay a shitload of money to the evil empire just to use the friggin language?

No. The SDK[1] is free.

quote:
Or do I get a bill that will ruin me only AFTER I have distributed some sort of program developed with it?

No bill. Or Bill.

quote:
Or is the language only runable on computers infested by Windows?

The Mono[2] project has a working C# compiler for Linux and various other lunixes. MS themselves has a project called Rotor[3] with implementations on Windows XP, MacOS X and FreeBSD. The Portable.NET/DotGNU[4] project also has a C# compiler.

quote:
Or is it just like C++ (0nly less complicated) in that it is free for everybody (uh, did MS go commie on us?), la, la, la, la, laaaa!!?

The C# language and portions of the .NET framework are on the fasttrack to ECMA and ISO standardization.

[1]http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/code/sample.asp?url=/msdn-files/027/000/976/msdncompositedoc.xml
[2]www.go-mono.org
[3]http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/sscli
[4]http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html


For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can''t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don''t remain stone- written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us -- Charles Bukowski

Hot diggidy, that was an extensive answer, with links and all! Great, thanks a lot, Arild Fines

Well, if the language lacks pointers, Im up for it :D

Btw, who was that dude Charles Bukowski (from your signature)? Seems like a smart fella - maby G.W. Bushwhacker should read some of his work before he gives another one of those religious instigating speaches that upsets the rational thinking world....wooops, did I just get TIPSied!?!? *paranoia freakout*

quote: Original post by _Danneman_
Well, if the language lacks pointers, Im up for it :D

Actually, it does have pointers, but you can only use them in special sections marked as unsafe. For day to day use, you don''t really need them - class objects are allocated on the heap and all access is through references. Myself, I''ve only found use for them once - when I had to manipulate bitmap pixels directly.

quote:
Btw, who was that dude Charles Bukowski (from your signature)?

He was one of the Beat poets. Apparently, he was also into beer.

quote:
Seems like a smart fella - maby G.W. Bushwhacker should read some of his work before he gives another one of those religious instigating speaches that upsets the rational thinking world....wooops, did I just get TIPSied!?!? *paranoia freakout*

Indeed.

Well I''ll be... here I thought I absolutely had to upgrade to Visual Studio .NET in order to use this stuff.

My hositility to Microsoft factor has dropped a few points.
It seems it is possible to do C# and VB.NET development absolutely free, if you download the .NET framework.

And there''s a nice IC# IDE available you can use to develop code in.

This is good... I have wanted to use C# for a while.. I don''t like making GUIs and apps in C++ (except for Borland''s Builder).

And DX9 hooks into C# and VB.NET.

Cool.

Thanks for the info.