Just wondering how many people have had a go at C# or other .NET tools.
I'm gonna be programming in it for the next 2/3 weeks, havn't had a sample of it yet. At runtime is it as fast as C/C++ files? or does it have lots of microsoft code in there that slows it down?
After a couple of weeks I might consider starting an LG for it if people are up for it.

sounds good, I'm still not sure what any of this /net stuff is supposed to mean anyways...

I've played with Visual Basic.NET and it's great! It's greatly responsive and very powerful. .NET makes Windows programming a little bit like Java programming except that it's not portable.

The new additions to Visual Basic.NET makes it a real OO programming language. C# is basically the same thing as VB.NET but with C/C++/Java style syntax.

is c# objective C or is this me getting confused with things I dont care about. C works ... C is simple ... C is good why the heck did theuy invent C# when there is C , C++ ?

-Vlad

Can anyone explain the point of C# or is it a Microsoft trick so people buy .NET ?

C# is basically Java + C++, meaning yet another bastardization of C. Objective-C is completely different (Smalltalk objects + C = interesting).

I get it

Objective C + Linux = GODD
C# + Microsoft = SHITE

Did I get you correctly , well I'll have a look at what C Sharp is. I stick to plain good old C with no frills ... excluding Qt.

-Vlad

C and Qt don't work together...unless you mean the C bindings from KDE.

Yeah ... them .. I only started Qt , before I used GTK but I got bored of it.

-Vlad

C# is Microsoft invention to attrack Java programmers into .NET :P There is nothing specially inovative or good about C#. Visual Basic.NET does the exact same thing.

What's good about C# and VB.NET is the .NET platform which IHMO is powerful and easy to learn. .NET uniformizes the access to the numerous and sometime esoteric API in Windows. You code COM, WMI, WinForms, XML, web applications, windows server, etc using the same data types, classes and basic objects. It was a necessary update to Windows and it will probably draw many programmers into .NET.

There was a free Book about GTK I printed off so its a great library for begginers.

-Vlad

If you want to do C programming in windows, then C# makes it a breeze and is just as powerful as C/C++. At the same time is is Microsofts response to Java, and has all the features of Java and quite a few extra ones making it the most modern language around.
It uses XML as its backbone file structure meaning all the files are easy to import/export into your programs.

I still havn't had any hands on experiance in it yet though, but it looks good. Also, I believe MS.NET is trying to make it cross platform (Already got FreeBSD working and now working on linux).

I don't know about that "most modern language around" bit. If you made that claim to anyone at CMU, you'd be laughed out after being told about Standard ML. Having less features in a language makes it superior for optimizations and other things that require automated analysis.

I think that the simpler the language - the more power. C was good enought ... extendible , quick , logical and served many purposes. C++ was an extension which retained some of C's features but added a more modern approach. I dont know what C# was designed for but my guess would be : make money for microsoft.

-Vlad

"I think that the simpler the language - the more power" - dont you mean the other way around?

QBASIC - very simple, easy langauge. not much power
c++ - complex lang, very powerfull
ASM - extreamlly complex and dificult lang - most powerfull around

Asm is the simpler language I've ever used. Each instruction in Asm has a simple, well-defined effect and are easy to understand. The thing with Asm is that it takes a lot of those basic instructions to get things done. It doesn't make the language extremely complexe!

Basic - very simple on the outside ... hard on the inside
C - simple on the inside ... simple on the outside
Asm - hard on the inside ... very simple on the outside

I am mad.

-Vlad

Hmm..so simple languages are powerful? With the Scheme standard weighing in at 50 pages it is one of the more simple and small languages out there, making it really powerful (actually, it _is_ very powerful).

Scheme is powerful because you could implement the whole stack of basic functions using only few primitives. That's what my teacher used to say.

When I say modern, I mean uses alot of modern concepts (I know most of them have been around for a while, and Java already uses pretty much all of them).
.NET is for Web services, databasing and business solutions (as is pretty much every other programming langauge out there nowadays) it catches errors, simplifies data transfer/manipulation (with the help of OOP), is VERY OOP (just like Java) and at the same time fast and efficent.

This is the one of the few microsoft products that I've seen that meets pretty much every standard (w3c and BCS) I know. I think its also good that they use XML for everything. Since XML makes life ALOT easier when dealing with files.

.NET uses something similar to a vm (Virtual Machine) but can be compiled to be stand alone.

Though its obviously not as fast as C/C++ it could handle high performance games without much difficulty. (though personally I would stick to C/C++ for games programming ^^)

I still don't see how those concepts, which are older than those underlying languages like ML, Haskell, and Scheme, are the ones that qualify is "modern," let alone "the features you want in a language."

DragonWolf: Don't forget that .NET isn't just C#... there's a VB component and others too...

.NET is not a really good development tool as its aimed for profit not productivity :-(. I've tried it ( pirate !! ) and it total s**t. The languages are very hard to use , VB.NET resembles a crappy Kylix and I couldnt get C# to work. Plus it took me ages to get it running on Russian Windows 2000 Pro. I dont see why people are so attracted to such a crappy IDE/Compiler when the can get Borland , lcc , gcc .... and for the IDE Xemacs or Vim or Jed.

.NET's popularity is easy to explain: 10% ignorance and 90% masochisme.

RedX

Well in any case .NET isnt wortth the money , is it. Why not use gcc and xemacs , combined they produce somethign far better than .NET.

vlad, you obviously don't know what you are talking about.

Why , I've tried .NET , but it was slow and was very 'big' and complex. Not worth the money.

Popularity of .NET explained:

1 - Windows is everywhere. Want it or not.
2 - Senior programmers are very often clueless and lazy and .NET is made just for them.
3 - I worked 8 months for the gov. of Quebec and I realised how important it was to get something done QUICKLY and .NET is aimed at that.

Well I suppose for speed and r.a.d. it is good but there is Kylix and Delphi.

It's excellent for RAD. It's good competition to Kylix/Delphi. Seing how popular Delphi was, Microsoft finally realised that Visual Basic sucked an proceeded to revive it. I think they succeeded.

Kylix is a good rad if you use linux however.

Kylix was a very wise move from Borland. It's sad to see that very few follow that example.

Kylix is cool if you want to make apps. under linux and are really bad with programming languages such as C or Fortran. I never got to use it , but I've heard its cool. Are there are OpenSource RADS?

Yes, there is Visual TCL, and probably numerous other that ease programming with Qt or GTK+.

Rapid-Q is a good schoice because you can port it to windows and from easily. And its free.

Visual J# arrived in the mail yesterday, and (although I knew about it earlier) it is _not_ java. you can't even take legit .java files and run them through it. The only similarity that it's supposed to have to Java is a "java like interface"... gar.

J# is a big scam. it's just .NET with the Java language :P

Qt comes with a RAD tool (designer). Gtk+ also has one (GLADE). At least for designing your GUIs. A few of the Guile maintainers will be getting Gtk2/GNOME2/GLADE/CORBA working in Guile after 1.6.1 is released (they get paid to do it too), so if you combine GLADE + Scheme...(think really rapid development).

And Kylix, well, sucks. I'm not saying this because it is proprietary or I don't like Delphi (I've never used Delphi so I can't comment), but every article I ever read about it said it sucked. It was just implemented in a crappy way (crashed, required libc5 for kylix 1, other stupid stuff). I don't think it was a great commercial success because it was implemented so poorly.

I've never used RAD , but I've used Glade for a bit. I think that RADS are not fun if you want to make your programs faster.