I started this post to talk about C#. Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking. I started wondering things, and I want to know what you guys think. Now my personal opinion is that C# is nothing short of a watered down C++, which is a Java competetant. Whats more, I find the features quite distressing. For instance, no multiple inheritance. This is crucial. And no variable declaration is required. The whole damn langauge is full of these idiotic notions, and quite frankly it disgusts me. As Bjarne Stroustrup says, and I happen to agree with him on this one he says something like this : "Leaving features out of languages just so programmer can''t make mistakes with those features is nothing short of reckless, and dangerous". I can''t remeber exacts, but it was pretty close to that. Another issue is that with the advent of C#, will C++ become redundant, and in turn C++ Programmers, forcing them to succumb to programming in C#, Microsofts hopeful Java-Killer? I beg any C++ programmer not to learn C#!! If it takes off we will all have to learn C#, and then what will be next? No thankyou. I am quite happy with C++ and I don''t need some piss-watered down version of C++ to be forced down my throat by those darned monopoly people at Micros*ft! Who agrees with me? Who doesn''t?

Lucas: I don''t agree with what you say. It doesn''t matter what you and I (as game programmers) think. We make up only a small, insignificant portion of the whole programmers world. Business applications which are designed for .NET platform need a new language to integrate all the new technologies that are native in .NET--for example XML. In a few years down the road, there''ll be no difference between a ''program'' and a ''website''.

We can either do one of two things: (1) Either adapt and evolve, or (2) be hard-headed or whatever and live with the "old way". I''m sure people during the MS-DOS to Windows transition said "Hell no, I''m not making a program for that evil and hard-to-program Windows...", and look at them now.

What I''m trying to say is--it''s not worth fighting things that are: (1) not worth fighting (like C#), (2) a dumb battle (like saying I won''t move to C#--sooner or later, you''ll have to).

If C# is successful, then it is successful for one and only one reason--Developers like it. Developers doesn''t just mean game programmers--it means the whole world of programmers, mainly the Software engineers, DBA''s, etc.

If C# is _not_ successful, then it isn''t successful because of one and only one reason--Developers don''t like it. Not because Game programmers don''t like it, mind you.

Right now, you''re at that MS-DOS-Windows turn. Which OS is fast? Which gives me more control? These were the questions asked by game programmers in the turn of 1980-1990''s. Right now, the answer is _ridiculously_ simple, as you''d know. Don''t you think there''s a _great_ chance that C# is the same thing as Windows was back then?

C and C++ were great languages, but they''re too old to be productive any longer. In a world of faster technologies, more things that could go wrong, the last thing I want is a compiler that doesn''t do simple array bound checking.

Bottom line is--let''s all give C# a try. I''ve been learning Java (Visual J++) for the last few weeks, and I _must_ say--MFC is as muddle headed as WFC is _not_.

Can I write a C flat?

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#pragma twice

Hmm, hopefully MS will be split up too fast to control computers the way they hope too and C# and .NET will go down to the depths were it came from. However I totally disagree. Game Programmers are a totally significant crowd. If all game programs just today, moved over to Linux, most other developers would have to follow, because most people at home really just want to play games, and thats where the money is, in the home computing.

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A wise man once said "A person with half a clue is more dangerous than a person with or without one."

ImmaGNUMan: I don''t think so. Most of the money when it comes to gaming is in Consoles. PlayStation, Nintendo 64... NOT in PC. Sure there are people who play games on PC. Home computing is NOT Gaming btw... its MS Word, TaxManager, Encarta, etc. Maybe you''d think that home computing is gaming since you''re a game programmer, but think of the big picture--game programming and the developers who make games are none but an insignificant part in it.

How many of you could have a family doing NOTHING but programming games right now?? And how many could learn Java, C++ and VB, COM/DCOM and some type of DB back-end (Oracle) and go to a job and support your family (kids, wife, parents).

My point is--Game programming is giving money to the big guys like Carmack. For average-Joe like you and me, there isn''t any market. So, you''d _have_ to learn something like what I listed above if you want to be able to live once you move out of your parents house/college. And those guys like Carmack represent not even 3% of the WHOLE crowd which uses C++/VB professionally.

And, even if ALL the game programmers DID move to Linux, Linux would _still_ be as dead as it inactive in home use as it is right now. Because Linux is too complicated for home use, it has no applications like MS Office for the average-home-computing needs (Word, Excel, Encarta, etc.). It has not even a GUI for god''s sakes.

Professional solutions providers prefer Windows/MAC/Unix right now, and they will prefer them even if all game programmers moved to BeOS or Linux. Windows is easy to use, is supported and developed a great deal, is just like English in a sense (go to almost every country and you''d be sure to find someone who speaks english). Where professional solution providers are, there is Microsoft, where Microsoft is, there is home-users.

Admit it--we''re pretty insignificant fellows when it comes to game programming field! Face it--how many of us program games on Windows? Of that, how many of us get to publish those games? And from this, how many of us succeed to make a living? And of this new field, how many of our games actually hit it big? And of this newer field, how many of our games actually "control" the market? Answer is NONE (not even Quake, QII, QIII, Final Fantasy, Diablo, Tribes, Half-Life, anything)--they had ports to other operating systems... or were just for one OS (maybe Windows, or a Console).

So, tough luck game programmers... instead of saying I won''t... how about saying I will for a change. And lets stop hating Microsoft.
- OldManDave.

Well, I have skimmed some of the documents on c# on ms''s website. It does not look too bad, which is not surprising considering some of the people they had working on it. Unfortunelty it is a lot higher on evangalistic hype than actual content.
But, oldmandave, I have to disagree with almost everything you said (except that this community is fairly insignificant).

quote:
Business applications which are designed for .NET platform need a new language to integrate all the new technologies that are native in .NET--for example XML. In a few years down the road, there''ll be no difference between a ''program'' and a ''website''.

Yes, thank you MS for taking a standard like XML and forcing us to use their technology in order to take advantage of it. As for the .NET, from what I hear is that all programs will be rented and no data will be stored locally. Is this really something that consumers are demanding? Is it something anybody wants other than big companies?

quote:
We can either do one of two things: (1) Either adapt and evolve, or (2) be hard-headed or whatever and live with the "old way". I''m sure people during the MS-DOS to Windows transition said "Hell no, I''m not making a program for that evil and hard-to-program Windows...", and look at them now.

Well, there are more reasons for resisting windows programming than you are letting onto. First of all, windows was slow and had horrible game programming support until 95/directx. That plus the fact that every windows version before 3.1 was not really a finished product.

quote:
If C# is successful, then it is successful for one and only one reason--Developers like it...If C# is _not_ successful, then it isn''t successful because of one and only one reason--Developers don''t like it.

This is very idealistic. In a perfect world, this would be true. But, most devolpers did not want to learn the fairly convoluted windows API, but were forced to by MS and the American public. Another example: Devolpers are hating the notoriasly hard to program PS2, and yet devolping for it anyways.

quote:
C and C++ were great languages, but they''re too old to be productive any longer.

So how much more productive would compiler bound checking really allow you to be? I have used Java in a work environment and really don''t find it to be more productive than c/c++. C# is still to early to speculate.

quote:
And lets stop hating Microsoft.

How about we stop blindly following them?

The bottom line is this. I didn''t see any particular demand for a new programming language from either devolpers or end users. I don''t see any demand for the framework that .NET will bring us from either group. In fact, .NET scares the living hell out of me and I will resist it as long as I can. I pray it will never come into fruitition.

Mike

:-0 wow, nice arguments here, or should i say parameters?

I''d say, learn everything you can for knowledge''s sake. Not mean spending your "valuable" time learning it when you have other important things to do. Who knows, everything might serves a purpose someway or another. If it doesn''t help you, oh well.

quote:
And, even if ALL the game programmers DID move to Linux, Linux would _still_ be as dead as it inactive in home use as it is right now. Because Linux is too complicated for home use, it has no applications like MS Office for the average-home-computing needs (Word, Excel, Encarta, etc.).

There _are_ a couple of (free) office suites for Linux: StarOffice, KOffice (I don''t think that''s finished though), and then there are standalone apps for wordprocessing and spreadsheats like Wordperfect and Gnumeric. There aren''t that many commerical apps though, but it''s just a matter of time. If you _must_ run Windows apps under Linux, then why not use an emulator like Wine (but then you might as well use Windows)?

quote:
It has not even a GUI for god''s sakes.

Have you ever used Linux? It DOES have a GUI! Ever heard of something called X Windows? Just because it''s not "built in to the OS" (like in Windows) doesn''t mean it''s not there.

With more user-friendly dists coming out (SuSE, Caldera, Mandrake, etc), I don''t think anyone can accuse Linux of being too complicated to set up and use anymore (back in the day Linux must''ve been hell to set up, but nowadays it isn''t). I have only tried SuSE yet and it was just as easy to set up as Windows, and then there are desktop environments like GNOME and KDE that are just as easy to use as Windows'', but more configurable.

Linux is very different from Windows and many people mistake that for being hard to use, but it really isn''t. When you started learning Windows, didn''t you think it was hard? I sure did, and everything''s hard at first (Windows and Linux too). Once you get the hang of the way Linux handles removeable media (floppies and cd-roms) and how its directory structure is, then everything''s easy

quote:
Professional solutions providers prefer Windows/MAC/Unix right now, and they will prefer them even if all game programmers moved to BeOS or Linux.

You are aware that Linux is a Unix based OS aren''t you? When you say that they prefer Windows/MAC/Unix that includes OSes like Linux.

I seriously doubt most home users really want to use Office at home too, and if they do, KOffice, StarOffice are good. The only real advantage Windows has over Linux is developers, ESPECIALLY game developers. More games = more kids that use Linux = people migrate OSes.

And as Muzza asked, WhereTF are you getting this info? Linux has multiple GUIs. The GUIs are also free and come with excelent documentation (although how many people really read anyway...) and source.


The fact that an OS like NT has the GUI embeded in the kernel actually makes NT less stable, where-as X-Windows is ontop of the kernel.

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A wise man once said "A person with half a clue is more dangerous than a person with or without one."

aint C# for quick programming?(like vb) i have read some stuff on c# and they dont say its gonna replace c/c++.