C# 2.0 Spec Released

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft released the design specifications document for C# 2.0 (codenamed 'Whidbey') to be released early next year. New features of the language include generics similar to those found in Eiffel and Ada, anonymous methods similar to lambda functions in Lisp, iterators, and partial types."

gc#?

Ok, I know I'm a bad coder for liking C sharp, but gcc should really support it - like it or not, college computer science people *are* learning it, and Free software should support it. In fact, supporting visual basic compilation wouldn't be a bad idea either...

Re:gc#?

Maybe you want to take a look a mono [go-mono.com].

Re:gc#?

college computer science people *are* learning it

What colleges are teaching C#? At my school we had one Pascal course then went into C followed by C++. I believe we could have taken Assembly right after Pascal, but I'll take that after I finish C++. I've heard of other schools starting with java or even python. I'm not arguing that schools don't teach C#, I just want to know which ones do so I can be sure not to transfer there.

Re:ugh

Wrong.

Pascal is not meant for serious programming like C is, but Pascal has sorta grown into this business application language, and is far from obsolete.

You also cannot do anything in C++ that you can in C. You can do this in C, but not C++:

void f(); /* argument types not mentioned */

void g()
{
f(2); /* poor style C. Not C++ */
}

Or...

void* malloc(size_t);

void f(int n)
{
int* p = malloc(n*sizeof(char)); /* not C++. In C++, allocate using `new' */
char c;
void* pv = &c;
int* pi = pv; /* implicit conversion of void* to int*. Not in C++ */
}

These examples were shamelessly ripped from Bjarne's FAQ, which is available Here. [att.com]

Code name

Whidbey is the code name for the next Visual Studio, not just C#.

moving towards bloatware or are these important?

You've truely engineered something great not when you can't add anything more to it, but only when you can no longer remove anything from it.

Its great that they are adding new features. But are they removing anything that was decided to be a bad idea? Now is the time to do it, in the early versions shortly after its birth, before there is too much legacy code...

Will MS begin to use this for its own products like Office in the near future?

Re:moving towards bloatware or are these important

Removing something is very difficult. In fact, it is not recommended (unless it is a serious flaw or bug). There may be millions of developers using a particular feature or programming technique that is "bad". If you go and remove it, it could adversely affect all these programmers and their existing code. This is one reason why companies don't really remove features. Backward compatibility in software is absolutely crucial (especially when you force developers to upgrade to new versions all the time).

The best thing to do is to "phase" out the undesired feature by not recommending it, not featuring it prominently in books, shifting features into optional components that must be installed, etc.

I know this isn't exactly the ideal way to do things but I see no other way. I mean, if I was responsible for Visual Studio (or C# specifications), I would not remove features. Who knows who is using a particlar feature?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Not quite the same thing.

The quote that the parent AC plagarized is from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the French aircraft designer living in the first half of the 20th century. (And author of The Little Prince, if that hasn't been banned in America yet.) He was speaking in the context of original design, not individual features.

While the plane is still on paper, that's the time to remove all the unneccessary cruft. That's de Saint-Exupery's point. Not after the plane has been built; then the dependancy problems you mention arise. That's not the proper time. Certainly not in midflight.

follow the link

Seems like a pretty limited spec.

All it says is:
Plugger: No approperiate application for type application/msword found!

whatever...

Does C# have continuations?

ie, Ruby does; Perl/Python do not

Re:Does C# have continuations?

You should get out more. There's a world of programming paradigms most people have never heard of, because they're still stuck using C-alike block structured OO languages.

Continutions are, roughly speaking, a generalization of setjmp and longjmp in C. However, to have true "first-class" continuations they need to be objects that you can pass around, store in data structures, etc. In C this isn't true, because if you return from the stack frame that did the setjmp, the continuation is invalidated. Lisp has "call/cc", some implementations of ML have "calcc" (typed), and many scripting languages have it, because it's pretty easy to implement in an interpreted language.

Continuations can be used to implement exceptions, user-level thread packages, "early exits" from recursive code, and other cool stuff.

Re:Does C# have continuations?

It's Scheme that has call/cc. Common Lisp didn't provide it (though it's not hard to write something similar if you really want it.)

Re:Ruby Continuations

Okay, no offense, but that's the worst description of continuations I've ever heard. It seems to be giving people ideas that it's like goto, which is a common reaction people have when they first hear about continuations. But it's not accurate. Goto manipulates the instruction pointer alone; continuations manipulate the entire stack in much more interesting ways.

There's some good stuff on continuations out there. They have little use in imperative programming styles like C++ encourages. In functional styles, they're used to implement exceptions, non-determinism, coroutines, generators, and a host of other control features that can open up whole new worlds of programming.

The crack about "ways of confusing people" doesn't mean that continuations tend make your code unreadable, like goto. It means that continuations are a confusing concept, but if you understand continuations, you can make much clearer code.

Iterators

Are they basically coroutines?
If so, that seems like a useful feature to have built in to a language.. I remember a while ago wishing that C/C++/Java had standard/nice ways of doing this..

Can someone who's more familiar with concurrent programming comment? (I haven't touched this kind of stuff in a while)

More C++

It looks to me at the first glance at the spec as if they took a lot more in from the C++ standard into C#.
The generic part is really just templates.
Lars Schouw

Version 7.

Will be Lisp.

Sea Number/Sea Sharp

C sharp? Wouldn't this be the same thing as C with a plus? A C# is C + a semitone.

Me: "Hi, I Program in Sea Sharp!"
Pianist: "That piece was played in D sharp actually."

Ok, since I know they wouldn't name a programming language after a music note... It must be C Number

Doesn't C Number conflict? You're naming a specific letter but using the generic word Number. I mean, shouldn't it either be Letter Number, or C 8 or something? But C Number?

Me: "I program in Sea Number"
Someone: "... Sea Number what? 1? 2?"

Re:Sea Number/Sea Sharp

It's really C-Hash.

Or as Microsoft execs like to pronounce it amongst themselves, cash.

Re:Sea Number/Sea Sharp

I still find it vaguely amusing that Microsoft released a product which cannot be properly displayed in the Latin-1 character set,
The octothorpe symbol, '#', has slanted vertical strokes. The "sharp" sign has slanted horizontal strokes.

Why should I care?

I have ignored C# since its inception. I would be interested in hearing from slashdotters who have used it. What's good about it and what's bad? Of course, I expect nothing less than purely objective replies...

Re:Why should I care?

I've been using C# for about a year or so now. I started with Java, and made a clean switch to C# for a few projects that required it. I don't think that it will ever replace any of the three P languages, but is more targeted at taking Java down.

I'm not a full-time developer, I usually develop some basic web applications to enhance some of the new solutions I implement for Systems Administration. My experience with it is limited, but I'll give you my pro's and con's:

Pro's

Easier access to IO - just try it in Java and see. It's much faster in C#

Improved XML support - also a lot simpler in c#

Not as many third party specifications to learn. I remember having to learn Struts, Ant, Tomcat, and then Sophia after learning JSP - what a pain in the ass.

MSDN - The help system inside VS.NET is better than most languages' will ever be.

Con's

Not the best IDE in my opinon - IntelliJ smokes Visual Studio.NET in almost every respect(except for the help).

Can't use it on Linux or BSD - my applications are bound to fail more frequently than an equivalent Java/PHP/Perl app running on a secure box.

Most of the support I used to recieve about Java, Python, and other open source languages don't discuss c#. There just aren't the same amount of mailing lists, IRC channels, forums, to throw around C# ideas. The ones that do discuss it tend to cater to the Lowest Common Denominator.

I have to resort to Visual Studio 6 in order to create desktop applications that run on everyone's machine. The .NET framework has been a hard sell for the enterprise I work in.

Code Name

Actually, Whidbey is the code name for the next release of Visual Studio and .NET Framework. C# is just a part of it. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/road map.aspx#whidbey

Does adding every ingredient make it better?

Seriously, do they think that if they take every little feature of every other programming language, they are actually going to come out with something useful?

All they are going to get is a language that nobody will understand all of because its just too complex. Are they just out to sell the massive books and training courses that will be needed in order to learn C#2? Is this their plan to "lock in" universities to teaching microsoft programing to all levels, because it will take 4 years of classes just to cover it all?

Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?

No, but consider the competition. C++ is insanely complicated and broken, and is popular. Perl is insanely broken and complicated, and it is popular.

Anyway, anonymous higher order functions and generics are two really glaring deficiencies in Java, C#, and many other modern OO languages, so adding them is a step in the right direction. It's not as if these are minor, useless features.

> Is this their plan to "lock in" universities to teaching microsoft programing to all levels, because it will take
> 4 years of classes just to cover it all?

That's crazy. Universities don't teach programming languages except as tools to teach more important concepts.

Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?

That's crazy. Universities don't teach programming languages except as tools to teach more important concepts.

Thats a great idea. Sounds great on paper, sounds great in theory. Sounds great while you're playing around with a bubble sort.

After that, its a load of crap.

Tell you what: You learn your bubble sort however you want. Your assignment is to write a program that uses a row colored spheres with numbers texture mapped to the surface of the sphere to demonstrate how the bubble sort actually operates.

I learned to do this at my university, and was lucky enough to get a professor that hadn't bought into the Windows Thing, and tought graphics programming with OpenGL (available everywhere) instead of DirectX (available in windows, and if you're lucky, wine).

In fact, when you get out of your pretty little university, you can try and get a job on "I know my programming theory". If you don't know the language and APIs that Company X is using, you're sunk. These days they don't settle for learning on the job. I had a wonderful job interview for developing an interesting application, I wowed them all with my knowledge, except for one little thing: I didn't know Perl/GTK which was what they were writing their application in. A few weeks later I got a check in the mail for my flight, car rental, and hotel and a thank you letter for taking the time to interview them in person.

Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?

Universities are right to teach important concepts (and not just algorithms like bubble-sort -- that's friggin freshmen stuff anyway) like software engineering, project managment, relational algebra (i.e. database stuff), networking, AI, parsing, logic, circuit design, and (I'm lumping here) under-the-hood operating system concepts.

If you've got a Computer Science degree, and you payed attention, you can pick up the syntax for a new language within an hour. With a good API reference, you can be banging out code like an old pro with a weekend of study. It's not that hard.

What matters far more than how well you know a language is how well you know how to program. Any monkey with a keyboard can whip out a Visual Basic app.

But to write truly masterful code... that transcends skill with a language and approaches art.

That said, I'm going to contradict myself: it's important to know the basic capabilities of the language you're working with. Java would be a shitty language to write, say, a program that computes the sum of the two numbers input to it on the command line, because it takes so long for the VM to load -- far more than the actual execution time of the program.

Fortunately, things like that can be quickly learned.

Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?

Personally, a "broken" language is a language that requires so much work to do things right that programmers that use them frequently do things wrong. For example, my all time favorite security flaw: the buffer overflow.

A good language should support the development of code that doesn't contain common flaws. In my opinion, C and C++ are directly responsible for security flaws that cost trillions.

Re:Does adding every ingredient make it better?

C is a low level language and makes no bones about it being such.

Is such a high level language such as one that is designed to run upon other protocals the same?

No.

thats a lot of angle brackets

i'm about a third of the way through the doc and it made me realize how much i hate reading language specs.

That being said, the idea of "inference" of type arguments seems cool and usable, if not a bit abusable.
I don't know if its just me, but when did templates get cool again? I love templates in C++ and its interesting that java's introducing them and C# now is really focusing on them. That being said, i can't see a place where Partial types (where you can break a classes implementation into move than one class) could be really so usefull.

One thing i couldn't get over with C# is that its *so* much like C++, with all the syntax, keywords and such but with none of the speed. At work i'll use java to do simple stuff i could have done in C++ only cause java's just simpler. If java had the mass of features that C# has, i prolly wouldn't ever use them. but, then again, i'm a dba.

Haha

All these fags whine because they can't open a .doc

Why C# doesn't Totally Suck

OK so I'm in the position of having to write an emergency support application for a M$-based system in a M$-based environment. Stuck in there. Completely. Been requested to make a maintainable, manageable solution. And yes, this is to say "make it for M$, with M$ tools as much as you can".

I guess even within these circumstances, I'd have refused to open Visual Studio for this project, if it didn't say ".NET" as well. I mean, think of it: previous versions of VS only supported C++ or VB, with APIs to cry for (admittedly, I don't know about MFC, only about Win32).

I actually happen to dislike C++, but on top of that, it doesn't suit my project, because the low-levelness makes it harder to program without errors (e.g. null pointers, memory leaking). I'd rather have a language at a scripting level -- and NO, that's NOT VB. I hope I don't have to explain why I hate VB if only on very first sight.

So with .NET, M$ introduced a quite nice API and Java language (come on, where are the real differences) into Visual Studio, which at least saved my day; I had found an acceptable programming environment for within Windows..!

There's really no need for anybody to pick on C#, long as it's realized that it's just finally a nice programming environment for Windows, and nothing (well, not much) more. (BTW, it's not much different from NeXT (now Apple)'s use/ takeover of Objective C.)

Re:Why C# doesn't Totally Suck

come on, where are the real differences

I thought the same thing. It's actually lots of little things that make C# nicer all 'round (in comparison to Java): Most pleasant for me is the fact that I can use enumerations without (a) declaring a new class/interface (b) placing a ridiculously long "public static final int" before EACH member of the enumeration and (c) being able to use the newly declared enumeration's new type name for parameters instead of just "int" - remember semantics?

Integrating legacy shit is also a snap with C#. Sure, managed C++ is better, but have you tried doing the same thing in Java? Yuck.

Lots of little things like this, IMHO, make C# better than Java.

I hate the fact that Microsoft charges an arm and a leg for Windows/MSVS/everything. But I like C#.

If only it was cross platform from the word go. Mono's nice, but the MSVS IDE is what keeps Microsoft/Windows up and above Linux as far as ease of development goes.

Python's better than everything else anyway. *hides* ;)

It's already there in Java 1.5

Enums have been added, generics have been added, automatic iteration in for loops have been added, et cetera [sun.com]. True, it hasn't been released yet (the first Java 1.5 betas are due next quarter), neither is Whidbey, and the JSRs have been out for some time, and the prototype compiler with generic support [sun.com] has been available for months.

VB Programmers

Wow dude. That document is going to confuse the fuck out of all those Visual Basic programmers after Microsoft deprecates their language.

How is this deep level of generics gonna be realized in the Common Language Runtime? Or are these features just available in C#? And, if so, won't that break all the .NET libraries?

Oh how exciting!

This is so exciting! Microsoft with their own language! I can hardly get the words out. Strains of Eiffel and Ada! Wow! How wonderful!

Microsoft are continually at the pinnacle of innovation in our industry, as we all know. That they should donate yet another technological breakthrough is simply too amazing for words.

Now anyone who believes a word of the above can get on a one-way Trailways to Redmond. In such case, they need you there.

innovation

wow, that will they think of next?

Re-inventing the wheel... but making it square...

Replace the references to Java below with C#:
-------
Sounds like they are adding a lot of features that the Dylan programming language has had since it's release (approximately 1995).

But whereas the features were elegantly incorporated into Dylan since the beginning and are consistent and easy to use, I suspect that in Java they are a hack.

Wasn't Java designed to be a simple language?

Let's all sing together

Let's be sure to adopt and extend
Let's be sure to adopt and extend
lest someone come to close to us
Let's be sure to adopt and extend!

;-)

-- Multics

more info

First off, Whidbey is the next version of Visual Studio, which is designed to use the dotnet framework v2. The SDK will be released publicly around the same time, so those who prefer Notepad need not pay one cent to write dotnet apps.

Secondly, generics, partial types, and such are being added to the CLR, as well as Microsoft's "first-class" languages, meaning that yes VB.NET will include them. VB.NET also gets operator overloading, native support for unsigned types, and in-line XML commenting.

You can read it all at the roadmap here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productin fo/road map.aspx

It tells about some of the changes to the IDE, the CLR, and the languages. One interesting new "feature" is a sort of grammatical analyzer for writing code that will suggest improvements or corrections, similar to the way word underlines misspellings or grammar errors.

Whether it will be a great tool or a bloody nuisance remains to be seen.

the kitchen sink too?

The next version will of course have features from Esperanto, Mandarin, and Martian.

I'm all for extending a language, but they haven't had C# around enough to be larding new stuff on. The language already had several ways to do most things, now they're adding more?

If we wanted ten ways to do anything, we'd use perl. If we're not using perl, that usually means we like to be a little more constrained.

-andy

Still no "throws"

I didn't see it in the doc - the one thing that would really make this language a bit better - the "throws" keyword. Right now, you can't define an operation to throw an exception that the calling operation must catch. Blah.

If you are going to copy Java, at least get the important stuff in there..

booooring

Java announced Generics months ago. In all, it seems like the java stuff is more exciting, although the lambda-like stuff in C# seems interesting.

It's good to see commercial competition adding new features to commercial languages, although I hope they don't get so feature bloated they become like Perl.

Re:booooring

Java announced Generics months ago. In all, it seems like the java stuff is more exciting, although the lambda-like stuff in C# seems interesting.

Java generics are broken because they don't guarantee type safety across compilation units. That requires VM changes, changes that Microsoft was willing to make but Sun wasn't.

Java is more and more turning into an accumulation of evil kludges. Instead of type-safe generics, we got a hack. Instead of lexical closures, we got nested classes. Instead of structs, we got some half-hearted promise of optimization under some nebulous set of circumstances that can't work in general. Instead of multidimensional arrays, we got some classes with a horrendous syntax that, on some theoretical JIT, might actually run faster than a snail.

I don't know whether C# will grow up into a well-designed general purpose programming language, but it is crystal clear that Java has missed the boat.

Re:booooring

Java generics are broken because they don't guarantee type safety across compilation units. That requires VM changes, changes that Microsoft was willing to make but Sun wasn't.

You don't know what you are talking about. The JSR 14 generics proposal offers compile-time type-safety while retaining compatibility with old (i.e. not generified) libraries. That means as long as you do not use "raw" types (e.g. Vector instead of Vector<String>) type safety is guaranteed and the compiler will emit a warning (and probably even an error in future versions) if it encounters usage of a raw type.

-- kryps

C# generics on built-in types do not use boxing...

From the C# 2.0 spec:

"When an instance of Stack<int> is created, the native storage of the items array is an int[] rather than object[], providing substantial storage efficiency compared to the non-generic Stack. Likewise, the Push and Pop methods of a Stack<int> operate on int values, making it a compile-time error to push values of other types onto the stack, and eliminating the need to explicitly cast values back to their original type when they're retrieved."

Java uses Object boxing for built-in types in their generics implementation.

Re:C# generics on built-in types do not use boxing

In case anyone reading the parent didn't get it, that means that the C# implementation of generics will have a strong efficiency advantage over Java's b/c boxing/unboxing is a costly operation.

is it going to be unencumbered?

This is a specification coming out of Microsoft that hasn't gone through a standards body. Do we know whether there are any intellectual property restrictions on implementing the C# 2.0 specifiation?

It is a good sign that this document only has a copyright on it and doesn't require a license agreement to download. In contrast, the Java specifications you can only access under a restrictive license agreement [sun.com] that impose contractual obligations on you that go far beyond patents or copyrights (note to open source developers: don't access Sun's Java specifications--you'll be tainted).

But that still leaves patents for C# 2.0. Do we know whether there are any? ECMA C# (the previous version) appears to be free and clear, but what about this version?

Iterators borrow from Python generators

They even chose to use the "yield" keyword. This is a way-cool feature of Python and now C#.

-elan

Kitchen sink not yet included.... yet

As is often the case with Microsoft, this *sounds* great. The reality typically turns out to be otherwise.

Expect an over ambitious plan with a buggy implementation and confused metaphors which don't necessarily fit with each other or with themselves, for that matter. However, undoubtedly, they will *sound* fantastic in powerpoint slides and when spoken of by the press, "Microsoft only" developers, and, finally, when compared to the "other guys".

The problem with Microsoft is, they market first, plan second, and then try to pick up the pieces third.

It is really unfortunate, but Microsoft isn't good for the computing industry anymore. Microsoft is only good for Microsoft. And principally this is because, Microsoft only cares about Microsoft winning, at any cost.

Generics as an afterthought

It's annoying that C++, Java, and now C# started out without generics and had to have them retrofitted.

In each case, the retrofit sucks. All the stuff that should be generic in the standard libraries, isn't.

Can't anybody get this right the first time?

c# and Stdin/Stdout anyone?

Ok, this is actually a .NET issue, not really a c# issue.

StandardInput and StandardOutput, in .NET, are text based streams, made up of 16-bit chars. When writing a (16-bit) char to StandardOutput it is converted to something else (UTF-8, maybe).

Piping binary data from one app to another is a very non-trivial task.

These are the small "features" that make c# unsuitable for anyone "thinking UNIX". Of course piping through stdout/stdin is not needed: you can use remoting, sockets or whatever - but those make easy things hard.

Anyone who has written a c# program that uses stdin/stdout for binary data?

BTW, you definately does not need Visual Studio to program .NET, vim + .NET framework and the online MSDN reference is completely sufficient.

'unsuitable for anyone "thinking UNIX"'

do you *really* think this design was an accident?

Re:c# and Stdin/Stdout anyone?

You are misinformed.

The Console class has indeed two properties: In and Out that are respectively TextReader and TextWriter objects, but there are also the OpenStandardInput and OpenStandardOutput methods that will return you a nice Stream that you can then write directly to (using byte arrays, for example).

And this is all easily done using command line compilers included with the SDK, or in Mono.

See, that wasn't too hard?

Dave

Summary of changes: not much new

1. generics
2. anonymous delegates
3. partial types

Compared to Java, 1 and 2 are not new. 3 is new, but I don't see the point of it (essentially you can define a class/type in multiple files, but all must be compiled together so it cannot be used to extend existing classes (which would be bad)).

1 is only in the spec stage here, whereas for Java there is already a technology preview, i.e. a more or less working implementation.

2 already exists for a long time in Java, the Java pendant of delegates being an adaptor class, and you can use anonymous classes to do exactly the same that anonymous delegates will provide.

The spec for generics is (as is to be expected) quite complicated, there are more issues to be careful of than one might think at first sight. I really wonder how other .NET languages will deal with this. For VB.NET programmers, using .NET classes implemented using C# generics must be a nightmare. I assume they will extend the other language specs in a similar way, otherwise you would loose the ability to mix languages in .NET.

The result is that VB.NET shall become a complex language too, to the point that most traditional VB programmers have to give up. In that case I wonder, what is the use of alternative languages then?

anonymous crackxor hexdumping ...

http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/1/6/81682 478-4018-48fe-9e5e-f87a44af3db9/SpecificationVer2. doc [microsoft.com]

C# 2.0 Specification 1 C# 2.0 S 1 Anders Hejlsberg, Peter Golde, Shon Katzenberger .0 6 Generics, Anonymous Methods, Iterators, Partial Types e ene Normal.dot n Anders Hejlsberg us 130 Microsoft Word 10.0

no more comments!

Language wars back in vogue?

It seems like after a decade or so of being stalled in the mainstream, new features are being added to commercial developmental languages and at a furious pace.

Generic generics?

After reading this I'll understand that C# generics really suck, big time, compared to C++ templates.

The constraints are really a pain in the butt, as you must specify what interfaces that the 'generic' type must implement, and not what specific methods of the interfaces that the generic type must implement. What you say, you may think: But if I wanted any type that has a method named 'void Print()' to be executed by my generic class, all of those types must implement a named interface (IPrintable). That is perhaps OK if I have full control over the source code, but whatif I'm using a library written by someone else?

If you don't specify a constraint the 'generic' type will effectivly be of type Object, and we all know how much we can do with the type Object. Hmm, let me think, oh yeah: ToString. No need for generics there.

The examples in the spec are also mostly container class examples, wonder why? Perhaps that the generics of C# can't do anything but (or mostly) container (or container like) classes.

M$ bitten by word format problems

Try opening the word-format file in different wordprocessors.

In Office XP on an XP machine the pagenumbers for the chapters in the table of content does not line up vertically!

Also there are no space in between the chapter and sub-chapter numbers and their titles in the table of contents. This one can be either a file-format problem or plain bad taste ;-)

They do line up in OpenOffice 1.1 on Windoss XP .

In StarOffice 5.2 on Linux the "Table of Contents" header in on a page by itself before the page with the content of the table of contents!

It is interesting that M$ thwmself cannot manage to create word documents that look correct on the most recent version of their own products ie. Office XP on a Windozz XP machine!

very nice features, but...

Those are very nice feature. I particularlly like "generics similar to those found in Eiffel and Ada", but I'm not even going to look at it.

Why? Because of patents. I don't know just what patents MS has, but they have said that they will use them to contol "their property" in response to a question about C# migrating to other platforms. I don't necessarily believe them, but on this kind of statement I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. Of course, they'll wait until it's most advantageous to act, so their not having done anything yet doesn't prove anything. They don't need to do anything until the code is nearing release quality.

They need to...

fix the god damn IDE and release a decent source control solution before upgrading this language!

Cool

Since I use .NET on Windows XP to write applications for Windows XP and Windows XP Embedded I'm quite looking forward to the new language features.

That some people here think it is important that Java has had two of these features already, albeit in a far less efficient form for generics, is neither here nor there. I do not use Java. I'd have to pay for a decent IDE for it, while Visual Studio .NET includes all the languages I need for serious windows development. Eclipse, in case you were going to mention it, doesnt function usably on two monitors.

However, since I used to be a compiled-code snob (i.e. ASM,C or C++ but no byte code!), C# has opened my mind to Java, and I'm looking forward to gnu's own byte code implementation [dotgnu.info]. C# will remove many barriers in peoples minds to using Java. Personally, I find C# easier to use, and I look forward to nice, fast generics.

partially reserved words

Doesn't anyone else (if anyone is still reading this thread) find the fact that the new reserved words, are context sensitive? That yield may still be used as an identifier in non-sensitive places. Just me, but I thought that language class I took years ago would have said thats a 'bad thing' for readability.

Re:That's great

What are you talking about fool? MS is perfectly within their rights to create whatever they want, blame it on the pointy-haired bosses for assuming everything MS creates is golden.

2 Personalities, one body. [whitehatresearch.net]

Re:Whidbey?

There's an island [msn.com] just outside of Seattle that is called "Whidbey Island".

Re:Whidbey?

*ahem*, worse than Codename: Woody?

How about Codename: Stiffy
Codename: Morning Wood
Codename: I really gotta bone, 'yo.

Re:Who gives a shit about C#

That language is even more vendor-tied than Java, and it's already bad enough there.

Agreed. Java is very proprietary, and no decent free version of it exists, since some of the internals are undocumented. This is the reason I no longer code in Java, although I love some things about language (interfaces, for instance, and the API is generally documented very good).

How is the situation with C#, can you use this in a free-as-in-rms environment?

Re:That's great

Microsoft is hardly the only company releasing proprietary programming languages. Software AG's Natural is the one that comes most readily to my mind, but there are several others.

Re:Who gives a shit about C#

C# is ECMA standardized. Java is wholly owned by Sun. Sun has repeatedly balked at standardizing Java due to the inherent loss of control.

Perhaps there are potential submarine patents, but Java is absolutely vendor-tied while C# is at least relatively open.

Re:Who gives a shit about the ECMA?

Have things changed so much that we can trust Microsoft and its "standards body" largely consisting of companies dependent on Microsoft to keep all extensions to this "standard" in the open and available to all players?

Of course not.

But those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it.

Re:Who gives a shit about the ECMA?

Who the hell is the ECMA?

"Ecma International is an industry association founded in 1961, dedicated to the standardization of information and communication systems."

Here is a list [ecma-international.org] of their standards. It includes specs related to C, Ada, IDL, ECMAScript (JavaScript), C# and WSDL. Interestingly enough, Sun and Oracle are absent from their membership list.

Why not an IETF standard?

Hint: the "I" stands for Internet. What does C# have to do with the Internet?

Re:this is fantastic

When will java get features like generics - no time soon i guess.

http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/technicalA rticles/releases/generics/ [sun.com]

Re:Whidbey?

I dunno -- that string of GNOME release names with things like "Euphoric Jellyfish" and "Look, my pants fell off!" makes Whidbey look downright poetic.

Re:That's great

Um... the C# specification *is* a platform independent specification. Good to see that you got the "+1, Knee-jerk MS Basher" moderation.

Re:OpenOffice.org is your friend

You have reaffirmed my hatred for this thing.

Re:this is fantastic

lol.

If you were not who you were, you would me modded down faster then you can say goatse. hehe

But seriously I am installing the c# learning edition now and plan to install your mono on FreeBSD4.8 or 4.9 if the rumors are true that Fbsd 4.9 will be done this monday!

I use to hate Microsoft with a passion. Their products use to suck until quite recently. The win32 api is quite nasty compared to gtk+ but with .net things will be improved.

What worries me is api closeness. Yes Mono the last time I liked supportes some winframe types but I feel uncomfortable being closed into a platform which is why I may not chose c# for an opensource project. Also the EULA for VS forbids GPL development due to its "viral" nature. This also limits portability.

Also one of the benefits you described for Gnome before the mono project started that gtk can be used in different langauges. I would like to see java integrated with gnome. I believe in freedom and also Java 1.5 supports generics and other features of C# and other languages. I wonder if if Mono includes Bonoboo object support? Got to check that.

Sun is not standing still.

I bet with newer api's that focus on less code might help too. One of Microsoft's examples is the classic petstore program. ITs only 1/4th the amount of code from the Java version.

Re:I'm Sorry

It's a good thing that languages borrow from each other.

Re:this is fantastic

Miguel de Icaza? Did you hi-jack that nick or are you really Miguel de Icaza of Ximian fame? I hope not since it sounds like you are selling out to MS. You really think they are "true innovators"? How quickly you forget all the nasty acts of MS that has brought tons of anti-trust suits against them.

No more hidden APIs or secret protocols from the boys at Redmond - from here on its all public domain open standards.

Oh great, so where can I download the specs for the MS document formats, the Windows media formats, etc, etc.? Do you really think that .Net won't be "extended" in some way if it ever caught on big time? MS will just "enhance" it with some MS specifics and thus make most apps MS Only again.

It sounds like the good ole greenback has caught your tongue.

THIS IS A TROLL

The real Miguel de Icaza is miguel (7116) [slashdot.org].

Parent is NOT Miguel de Icaza

If you click on his nick and look at his page you find this text:

i play a pivotal role in a grand conspiracy to cripple the free software movement from within, by covertly embedding an unnecessary, yet seductively useful, patented technology in the very heart of the linux operating system's second most popular desktop environment.

This is Miguel de Icaza? I don't think so. Look for miguel [slashdot.org].

Recap:

Yankees lost.
C# to also feature T-expressions.

Re:OpenOffice.org is your friend

Java is almost as bad. The only reason it's not as bad is because Sun is more afraid of pissing developers off than MS is, and has made quite a few concessions as a result.

Re:Whidbey?

Almost certainly a corruption of Whitby (white bay).

Re:That's great

So...

When does the platform-independent, platform-independent spec come out?

Re:this is fantastic

Can't tell if you're trolling or ignorant, but generics are coming in Java 1.5, and there's been an example implementation available from sun for about a year.

Re:OpenOffice.org is your friend

or using the gnu tools: cat $* | strings | less