WELL IF IT AINT BROKE...

quote:
C and C++ were great languages, but they''re too old to be productive any longer.
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What are you talking about? You mean to say Windows should have been made using something else? C and C++ are probably the two most single popular and successful languages ever! And whats more, the languages are fast, efficient, and flexible. As someone said before, if it ain''t broken...

Plus, think about Sun, Mac, and the Linux\UNIX community! C# as I see it is a privatization of what _should_ be a "global language", one that everyone can use.
Linux has heaps of GUIs! They''re all free, too. Linux is really growing, and anyone who ignores it is a fool. GNOME, KDE, and Sawmill to name a few GUIs, and StarOffice (on Windows too, you don''t see anyone else guys blocking of THEIR software to other OSes!!), and KOffice are both good business softwares.
BTW, Linux distributions such a Mandrake, Red-Hat, SuSE to name few come with GUI(s) and are not hard to set up. Different yes, but not hard if you take a bit of time. You took time and effort to learn Windows, didn''t you?

Whats more, developers aren''t the only people in the industry who have power over languages. The rich people, Microsoft, the critics(who are not all developers), and what Microsoft may tell us about the language that isn''t 100% true.

Someone mentioned smoother integration with things like XML, and other webby stuff. A whole new language just for this? Somehow I think there is an alteria motive for Microsofts release of the language. When DirectX came out, they didn''t invent VisualX++ or DX#, they just made an API for it. C# I think is concocted to do these things (from Microsofts point of view):

-Kill or at least wound the useage of Java by developers. Microsoft seem to market C# as a simpler C++, more web integrated web language(sound familiar???)

-Make XML more compatible so it can be used more. Microsoft stresses this extensively

-Make the idea of using Windows a hell of a lot more appealing if you want to use the web and XML. This will force some UNIX\Solaris developers to use Windows.

-Make Microsoft the owner of the current (and hopefully successful) language that everyone uses so they can gain an even greater monopoly

-Slowly phase out C++ and any other language, because Microsoft dislikes the fact that they don''t own it.

-probably many more reasons that are unforseeable at this stage but will no doubt eventually come out and there will be a huge lawsuit between whoever and whoever.

Who said C# isn''t a rival of C++? Microsoft intends to leave VC++ out of their "new age visual studio" or some crap. This new Visual Studio is full of web XML and C# stuff....

I''d say C# is just Java with a different name. Geez it would suck if ms stop developing stuffs for C/C++

Um, If MS leaves out Visual C Borland is gonna make lots of money.

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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."

whatsyourname that did that last post, you`re right !
Now, i havnt looked at C# at all, BUT what ive heard of it is that it is a WEB lang mostly. I have used both C and C++ and they are both good languages.I hear that Pascal/Delphi are also good langs.
Now, lets think here...
Whatever works the best will eventually win out.
Right ?
Say C# works great for web apps like e-carts and stuff like that, ok ? So the webbies use that mostly.
Fine by me.
Say C++ works best for down-to-the bone programming like gaming and OSes. So M$, the Linux people, and the game developers use C++.
Kewlness.
Say Delphi and VB work great for applications.
So the application programmers use those langs.
Neato.
Folks, the point I`m trying to make is that what works best, people will use.
Theres piles of langs out there, but the easiest and best documented are what people use.Well...hold on, BASIC`s a pain.
Best documented and featureful are what people like.
Yes, I said BASIC. Too wordy.
Of course, I really dont see whats in COBOL or FORTRAN tho...they are terrible.
COBOL, if im not mistaken, had you go
"6 multiplied by 8" instead of
6*8
But I digress.
I think you have my point ?
~V''lion






I came, I saw, I got programmers block.
~V''lion

I''ve read the MS white paper on C#, have read several reviews and read several interviews, including one with the main developer of C#. The way I interpret what I''ve read is that we have nothing to worry about. It''s just another language, not a replacement for anything. Sure, it has some similarities to Java. Yes, it''s very similar to C++. It also has features akin to other languages like Eiffel and Pascal.

No, it is not only meant for developing ''Web apps'' as someone inferred. It can be used for that. It can also be used to build fully compiled, shrink-wrap-type software.

Some people will like it, others will hate it and still others will be somewhere in between. No one, including MS can force us to use this new tool. But it will be there in case someone has a use for it.

Give it a chance or ignore it. You have this same choice with any language.

It''ll be a cold day in Hell before I program anything in C#, based on what I''ve heard. Evidently, it''s a language designed on the Java paradigm- which is, as somebody said, to disable features so that the programmer does not hurt themselves. That is just sad. I use void* pointers and I''m proud of it.
I once tried to use the old windows API to do 3d, before I got directx. In particular, the setpixel function. I have to tell you, the fastest supercomputer in the world could not offset the effects of piss-poor programming. With a pointer to video memory, you can clear an 800x600 screen dozens or hundreds of times a second, limited only by the speed of the bus to the video card. But if you do 480,000 calls to the SetPixel function, it will take 20 seconds to clear the screen ONCE.
Now I am not totally dead-set against NET on the whole- it might turn out to be a good idea. But Java, MFC, and C# will just plain never be useful for writing fast games. And the games of the future if polygonization keeps improving will have levels maps gigabytes in size- try downloading that without a fiber-optic cable wired to the back of your computer. Not to mention buying a server big enough to send all that information.
C# and its ilk are useful for little dancing icons- and that''s about it. Bill Gates wouldn''t know a TRULY good programming language or API if it jumped up and bit him in the buttocks, and he has proven it time and again.
You cannot continually degrade the quality of programming tools and software and simply expect bigger CPU''s to take care of the check- or else you end up with monstrosities such as Microsoft Word. I mean, which do think is a more complex task, a realtime 3d renderer or a word processor? And which loads faster, runs better, and freezes less often, Word on a 450 mhz Pentium II or Quake on a 486? Word won''t even RUN on a 486- and it won''t run even marginally well on a win95 computer unless you have a good 64 megs ram. Quake will run on 8 megs ram, flawlessly. And that is why C#, Java, and basically everything Microsoft ever has created will never be succsessful for computer game development- due to the sheer incompetence with which it was written, using it is simply not feasible.
-FallingFrog

i dont think ms is trying to replace anything, but they just want to have another place in the internet world

I haven''t read the c# docs yet and I don''t plan on it unless I really need to learn yet another language.

I started with pascal, moved to C, then learned Delphi and C++. Now I''m sticking to C++ until I can safely say I''m easy with it .

However, it doesn''t mean I''ll spit on c#. While I certainly am not a big MS supported, I believe that C# will probably have at least one interesting feature (or what''s the point?), be it easy integration of XML, WYSIWYG development, whatever.

I don''t think it will be a concurrent to Java, at least not if it produces bytecode like Java, because I doubt that MS will make a c# virtual machine to run c# on ALL OSes out there. Will Sun support a concurrent to Java? Well I don''t know, but I doubt it.

And if it can create executable files for multiple OSes, then great, a faster Java, what''s wrong with that?

To reply to the anon post, I''d say it isn''t easier to make a word processor like MS word than to make a realtime 3d renderer. Game programming isn''t rocket science. It''s hard to make anything as soon as you want a really performant application.

My 0.02 $

I have no doubt that Microsoft is trying to replace Java with this. Why? Because they have the same basic purposes and features - rapid development of GUIs, portability to any system, no multiple inheritence, garbage collection, basic syntax of C++, integrated development of internet software, etc.
You should also note that Microsoft has dropped VisualJ++ and
replaced it with VisualC# in DevStudio 7. You can find various articles on that around the net, but I''m too lazy too find them for you (and I''ve already read them). It''s quite obvious that they intend to replace Java with C#. I''m not worried that it''ll happen, though, as many Java developers aren''t even using a Microsoft OS
As for replacing C++, C# isn''t going to offer things that benefit most C++ developers, especially in games. C# will likely run a fair amount slower (thanks to garbage collection among other things) and be less flexible. Also, VisualC++ is still part of DevStudio 7. So C++ isn''t going anywhere, for the time being.
I imagine it will simply become another option for some people, but I don''t expect it to become widely adopted.
To recap, C# is Microsoft''s attempt at replacing Java, not C++.