What does everyone think of C#? Is it a good alternative to C++ if one wants to focus on windows programming? Or is there a way to import the simplicity of C# into C++ via premade classes?

c# is nice.

quote: Original post by tfinazzi
Is it a good alternative to C++ if one wants to focus on windows programming?

"windows programming" is a very broad subject, and ranges from writing network servers, to writing shell extensions, to using windows management instrumentation to collect performance data and control computers, and to making "hello, world" type of applications to serve as game frameworks. you have to define what you mean by windows programming.

[edited by - niyaw on February 10, 2003 3:14:43 PM]

IMHO

C# has excellent potential, but for the time being consider:

(1) It is NOT cross platform ( Much work is being done to port )
(2) C# and C#/DX development/integration is in its infancy and your likely to run into some issues.

Another thing to consider is that C# is owned and controlled by Microsoft. They have subitted it to a stadards group, but the likelyhood of acceptance is small.

Becoming completely dependent on Microsoft for your game developement is a risk to consider. Although using DirectX for game development on Windows is not optional, MS has a history of squeezing every little dollar it can out of its customers. Does anyone remember when MS tried to charge $500 per programmer to use its Game SDK(Direct X).

So use it with caution and in full awarness of the facts.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Another thing to consider is that C# is owned and controlled by Microsoft. They have subitted it to a stadards group, but the likelyhood of acceptance is small.

Eh? It has already been accepted - by both ISO and ECMA.

[remaining FUD snipped/]


"I know very well who Satan is: He is freedom. He is the uncontrolled, the incalculable, the antithesis of order and discipline, the antithesis of the legalism of outer space.... We know where a planet will be in twelve years, four months and nine days. But we don''t know where a butterfly will have flown one minute hence. Therefore the butterfly is of Satan."
-- Jens Bjørneboe

I love C#. Anything that you can''t do in C# you can import a C++ .dll or write a managed C++ wrapper for. Which is pretty easy once you learn what stuff they added to it.

C# gets rid of header files/code file difference and declaration forwarding stuff.

quote: Original post by tfinazzi Or is there a way to import the simplicity of C# into C++ via premade classes?

One of the main differences between C# and C++ is that with C# you create managed code. That is, all the headaches we all get at times allocating memory, freeing it again etc in C+ are gone with C#, since its framework takes care of it all by use of a so-called garbage collection.
In other words, there is not really a way to import that part of the 'simplicity' of C# into C++ (and I dare say I cannot see why one would want to 'castrate' C++ in such a manner, since unmanaged compiling has a lot of advantages as well).

[Of course there are quite a few other things that set C# apart from C++, C# is type safe, C# compilers do not generate native code (that is, a framework is needed to have C# running - much like in Java) etc etc]

quote: Original post by anonymous<br>(1) It is NOT cross platform ( Much work is being done to port )<br>(2) C# and C#/DX development/integration is in its infancy and your likely to run into some issues. </i> <hr height=1 noshade></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE> <br><br>As for C# (or the .net framework respectively) not being cross platform … hmm, you might want to look at what .Net actually IS again. .Net comes as closs to cross-platform as we have ever been since Java hit our harddisks. Frameworks are already available for a few other platforms than windows and several more are already being worked &#111;n.<br>Been programming C# and the .net framework since Alpha release (hell I wish final versions of some software was as stable as that Alpha) and used com-interop literally dozens of times (since our customers cannot afford to have all the com+ libraries replaced immediately) and have yet to run into the issues you are pointing at <img src="smile.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle> – &#111;n a sidenote, the .net framework for windows was implemented using C#.<br><br>…<br><br>Although I doubt C# will ever replace C++ for programming games, it (and the .net) framework, will definitely replace Visual Basic and C++ in terms of business software (desktop and webapplications) &#111;n the windows platform – .net and C# has made many many dreams I had during the last 12 years of programming come true, and what is even more important : it has removed even more nightmares I had during those years <img src="smile.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle><br><br><br><br><SPAN CLASS=editedby>[edited by - Kronos &#111;n February 10, 2003 7:21:57 PM]</SPAN>