Channel 9 Forums - Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

David Oliver — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 17:22:47 GMT

DomXML Demsak believes that C# is turning into bloatware with all the new functions and features and so it's getting harder to use.

Sign-up here if you agree.

Personally, I don't agree, but it's something that we can debate here. (Best place for this debate to happen if you ask me!)

So do you think he has a point?

Well I do remember that Microsoft did bloat out old VB with loads of rubbish in VB6 that was no good to man nor beast, so perhaps he's got a point.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Tommy Carlier — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 17:47:30 GMT

I think the new features in C# 2.0 (and what I've seen from C# 3.0) really improve the language a lot. I believe that things like generics actually make C# more elegant. What do you like more? This:

   ArrayList x = new ArrayList();
   ...
   int a = (int)x[i];

Or this:

   List x = new List();
   ...
   int a = x[i];

In C# 3.0, the first line can even be reduced to:

   var x = new List();

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

eagle — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 17:48:38 GMT

Sabot wrote:

DomXML Demsak believes that C# is turning into bloatware with all the new functions and features and so it's getting harder to use.

Sign-up here if you agree.

Personally, I don't agree, but it's something that we can debate here. (Best place for this debate to happen if you ask me!)

So do you think he has a point?

Well I do remember that Microsoft did bloat out old VB with loads of rubbish in VB6 that was no good to man nor beast, so perhaps he's got a point.

It was a joke, but it's great to see that you read DonXML's blog!

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Tom Servo — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:02:27 GMT

God forbid if someone would actually try to improve a language!

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

irascian — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:40:10 GMT

It was a joke, but it's not hard to see why many would assume it was real.

The fact is that C# is getting more complex and it's no longer the 'VB with semicolons' that it first appeared to be.

It's getting more powerful which means it's getting more difficult to get to grips with all of its subtleties and complexity. If you don't have a strong OO background and are the traditional self-taught VBA or VB guy it will be a total nightmare trying to follow some of the code examples that are appearing with all the new announcements.

Is that a bad thing? No. You still have VB.NET to make life a bit easier.

Will it make it more difficult for the 'traditional' VB6 programmer to transition (I say this as a VB6 programmer myself who made the switch to C# when it first shipped)?. Absolutely.

The big challenge for Microsoft is in retaining that 'hobbyist' market - much of which is responsible for Microsoft's huge success in the marketplace. VB.NET is considered by many to be too complex and it will be interesting to see how their efforts to 'keep things simple' for that market pan out with all the new features coming in.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

JChung2006 — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 20:26:24 GMT

VB.NET 9.0 is more like C# 3.0 than you realize.

You don't have to use the new features if you don't want to. As long as your old code still works, you're fine. That's the major source of contention from VB6->VB.NET migration -- not that they added all these cool new features to VB but that they broke backwards compatibility with VB6.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Manip — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 20:57:50 GMT

irascian wrote:

Will it make it more difficult for the 'traditional' VB6 programmer to transition (I say this as a VB6 programmer myself who made the switch to C# when it first shipped)?. Absolutely.

That is extremely insulting... You make it sounds as if *all* VBA programmers haven't ever used OO and are just idiots with a compiler... I for one have yet to have trouble following the new features in 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 with the slight exception of that language query stuff... Very strange ... Kinda cool.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

JChung2006 — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:02:17 GMT

I don't think irascian was trying to characterize all VB programmers as "Mort." There are some though that aren't familiar with OO. Believe you me, I've met several in my years working on VB development teams. The pages of global variable declarations and thousand-line Subs and functions still give me nightmares.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

irascian — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:15:19 GMT

If you want to see my comment about the 'typical' VB programmer as an insult then frankly that's your problem, not mine (albeit a problem you've exhibited on many postings here in the past that I've usually just avoided getting involved in)

There's a reason I didn't use the word 'all' and why I used the word 'typical' and put it in quotes instead, just as there was a reason why I pointed out I am a former VB programmer myself.

Incidentally one of the reasons Ford moved from VB6 to C# when .Net came out was as a way of weeding out the 'typical' VB6 programmers who just didn't seem to 'get' OO. The move to C# was a way of retaining only the good ones who realised that the change in syntax moving from VB to C# wasn't the key difference - it was 'getting' OO that was important. Sadly in my experience too many VB programmers DON'T get it (and I'm sure there are some C# programmers who don't get it either, but I think they're a much lower percentage).

Of course there are some excellent VB guys out there (Ted Pattison is a name that immediately springs to mind, Billy Hollis is anothr) but I can't help remembering Don Box's quote at TechEd a few years ago when he asked how many people in the audience were VB programmers and then jokingly dissed them saying "Everybody knows that VB programmers are just failed marketeers and journalists".

I hadn't intended to turn this into a religious war, and indeed one or two of the best programmers I've worked with are people who trained themselves on VBA and then progressed to VB. On the other hand I've had to deal with a hell of a lot of really bad code at clients where "the guy in accounts wrote it after teaching himself VB". Maybe I've been lucky but I haven't seen many bad C# or C++ programmers.

The argument about the complexity of the language is a similar one to the argument about web standards. Proper use of CSS makes it difficult to impossible for the "average" man on the street to write his own web site, where HTML is pretty straightforward. In the same way I think that the new constructs, or more importantly some of the newer code examples being thrown around in the newer versions of the languages are too complex for the guy who's learnt a bit of VBA and written a few simple Windows forms applications to get to grips with.

Your mileage may vary.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

JChung2006 — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:24:04 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

People are never going to be happy with .NET or C# once they learn C++ and realize their code takes up about 1000th of the memory footprint and runs about 10 times faster.

It's just a fact. Beginner languages and frameworks are quickly outgrown. People are smarter than MS devs give them credit for.

If that's true, then why is Java more popular than C++?

I learned C++ long before I learned .NET or C# (long before either existed) and quite frankly don't miss it, because quite frankly I really don't want to write 10-20 lines of C++ when I could do the same damn thing in 1-5 lines of C# or VB.NET.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Manip — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:28:42 GMT

Call me a lazy (I need to watch my language) if you want but I just love the idea of being able to go x = null; without having to ask myself -- "Is this a nullable type?"...

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

JChung2006 — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:33:39 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

C and C++ are WAY more popular for Desktop applications. Probably by a margin of 10,000 to 1.

You're kidding right? There are significantly more VB/.NET custom business applications than there are C/C++ desktop applications.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

JChung2006 — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 21:37:39 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

Java is used for service applications like daemons, and xxx_d applications that don't need to have immediate results displayed to a user.

Java's memory and performance footprint on the server though is a significant factor. Or maybe it's not so significant, eh? Else everyone would be writing their Web pages as ISAPI DLL's and C++ custom Apache modules? Which they don't.

Beer28 wrote:

When you are distributing client applications like photoshop where you don't control the hardware, that's where it matters, and there are very few java client desktop applications. For that reason BTW.

There are plenty of VB client applications running on business desktops all across the world, or maybe you've just chosen to selectively ignore the popularity of VB so that your "C++ is more popular" view isn't shattered by pesky things like fact and reality.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Detroit Muscle — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:01:52 GMT

JChung2006 wrote:

Beer28 wrote:C and C++ are WAY more popular for Desktop applications. Probably by a margin of 10,000 to 1.

You're kidding right? There are significantly more VB/.NET custom business applications than there are C/C++ desktop applications.

The average automobile rolling off the assembly line has 30-40 networked ECUs. 16 million cars were sold in the US alone in 2004. Each of those ECUs runs software programmed in either assembly or C.

That's 480-640 million computers that were sold through car dealerships. How many PCs are sold in the US every year? How many Severs?

All you C#/VB/C++/Java fanboys can continue to argue about whos bloatware is more bloated, while us real programmers write the tight, efficient assembly and C code which allows civilization to function.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Programous — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:01:59 GMT

I would agree that switching to C# is good manly because it weeds out ‘mort’ style programmers. Personally, I write in VB.NET manly because right now the VB.NET 2003 IDE is better(Manly due to the code compellation). But when I code using the 2005 beta I use C# because the IDE’s are now at the same level. Most programmers shouldn’t have a problem switching between the two.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Programous — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:06:32 GMT

Detroit Muscle wrote:

JChung2006 wrote:

Beer28 wrote: C and C++ are WAY more popular for Desktop applications. Probably by a margin of 10,000 to 1.

You're kidding right? There are significantly more VB/.NET custom business applications than there are C/C++ desktop applications.

The average automobile rolling off the assembly line has 30-40 networked ECUs. 16 million cars were sold in the US alone in 2004. Each of those ECUs runs software programmed in either assembly or C.

That's 480-640 million computers that were sold through car dealerships. How many PCs are sold in the US every year? How many Severs?

All you C#/VB/C++/Java fanboys can continue to argue about whos bloatware is more bloated, while us real programmers write the tight, efficient assembly and C code which allows civilization to function.

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS4666205829.html

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

BenZila — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:12:58 GMT

Detroit Muscle wrote:

That's 480-640 million computers that were sold through car dealerships. How many PCs are sold in the US every year? How many Severs?

All you C#/VB/C++/Java fanboys can continue to argue about whos bloatware is more bloated, while us real programmers write the tight, efficient assembly and C code which allows civilization to function.

'Real programmers'

Elitist alert.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

ThomasAesir — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 22:30:03 GMT

JChung2006 wrote:

There are plenty of VB client applications running on business desktops all across the world, or maybe you've just chosen to selectively ignore the popularity of VB so that your 'C++ is more popular' view isn't shattered by pesky things like fact and reality.

VB.NET and C# are all well and good for custom business applications where you control the enviroment but how many shrinkwrap applications get build in them? Hell, even Microsoft does't release shrinkwrap applications which require the .Net Framework.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

irascian — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 23:17:23 GMT

ThomasAesir wrote:

Hell, even Microsoft does't release shrinkwrap applications which require the .Net Framework.

Errrm. Sparkle requires the .Net Framework.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

sbc — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 23:54:43 GMT

irascian wrote:

ThomasAesir wrote: Hell, even Microsoft does't release shrinkwrap applications which require the .Net Framework.

Errrm. Sparkle requires the .Net Framework.

I think he means the mainstream ones, not in beta. Like Office, MSN Messenger, SQL Server etc. Is Visual Studio written in C#? What Microsoft products are written in .NET 1.0/1.1?

Where performance is a primary factor, .NET is not the best option. I doubt a database written in C# would ever outperform one written in C/C++.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

David Oliver — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 00:12:00 GMT

What have I done! Can we stop the thread please I want to get off! Comparing languages is like comparing (I need to watch my language) lengths.They all do the trick in there small way and one is really as good as another but some can get into nooks-and-cranny's better than others when pushed!Anyway, hey I'm an Architect, so I believe 'Abstraction' is going to take away most coding anyway some day any how.:PJust for the record Ian, I'm an old VB3 coder, from a C background (thats C on a Dec Vax). I got into OO by looking at the feature list of VB4 and going 'collection classes ... cool!', a humble start, sad but true.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

jsrfc58 — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 01:59:14 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

java and it's .NET clone are bloat, plain and simple. There's no big deal when you run a service application and you own the hardware and can stock it with lots of memory but when it's redistributable, it's a bad idea. For embedded stuff it's an even worse idea.

Everything comes down to machine language anyway, whether it is a runtime (.NET) or a program written in C/C++. .NET just adds layers of abstraction, and yes, it does have its place because it is often faster in terms of productivity when creating apps. But it is not appropriate everywhere. Assembly language is usually the absolute fastest code, IF it is well written and optimized. However, it is not usually appropriate for huge programs like a word processing app where most of the work is done somewhere down inside of the Windows architecture where you have little control anyway.

This is why there are hardly any books on Windows assembly language programming. Don't get me wrong, I love assembly, and always will, but there are times when it is not the best tool.

I still prefer compiled languages over bytecode or interpreted languages anytime, tho.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

jsrfc58 — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 03:25:00 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

True, BUT compile a small C program that sleeps for 10 secs, and check your resources while it's in main() sleeping, then compile the same program with C# and .NET, then you'll see that yes, both run CPU opcodes, obviously at the end of the road, but one compiles to much smaller more compact instruction sets and reserved memory than the other.

Yes, but that also depends upon which IDE/vendor implementation you use...whether it is Borland, gcc, VC6 or something else.

And you could probably make it even tinier in assembly.

Sounds like a contest idea...who can make the most compact program for a given function.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Zhou Yong — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 03:30:36 GMT

jsrfc58 wrote:

Sounds like a contest idea...who can make the most compact program for a given function.

I recommend you to program in CPU instruction sets, no compilation is needed, no performance penalty will be encountered:p

Sheva

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Zhou Yong — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 03:31:04 GMT

sbc wrote:

Is Visual Studio written in C#?

I believe part of Visual Studio.NET is written in managed code.

sbc wrote:

What Microsoft products are written in .NET 1.0/1.1?

AFAIK, there's none:(

Sheva

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Zhou Yong — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 03:31:24 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

People are never going to be happy with .NET or C# once they learn C++ and realize their code takes up about 1000th of the memory footprint and runs about 10 times faster.

It's just a fact. Beginner languages and frameworks are quickly outgrown. People are smarter than MS devs give them credit for.

Where is LeighSword? I think you find a comrade now:p

Sheva

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

McDonald — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 05:19:35 GMT

I started out writing assemblers in assembly as well as operating systems, I wouldn't do it today. The need for the ultimate in speed and compactness is rare (except scaling servers and video) now that processors are slightly faster than 1Mhz and don't have a 64k limit. Then you played games to write tighter and faster code, including nop instructions to hide an additional entry point.

When you consider the likelyhood of error and the scale of today's applications you have to use a high level language. Current languages like C#, Java, C++, C aren't really far from assembly in concept anyway. As an example available to you consider how much easier it is to create visualizations in XAML versus C++.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

sakisp — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 06:51:34 GMT

.NET and all that managed stuff are really nice though I have to agree that nothing compares to pure optimized and native compiled C/C++ code in terms of performance and memory use.
It's the VM nature of .NET that bothers me. Many .NET developers think that JIT creates the same optimized machine code as a native compiler like C/C++. Unfortunately that's not (yet) true.

With .NET and C#, I really enjoy the fact I'm able to create rich GUI applications in less time, but that comes at a cost. Fortunately there is C++/CLI that mix both managed and native - unmanaged code. Currently it is the only "right" tool for performance critical applications that have to access CLR.

If only that was possible with C# ...

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

blowdart — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 07:18:51 GMT

clawing back onto topic

One of the "selling" points for generics where they were built into the language, a native part of the CLR unlike the java version, which is a compiler hack.

To me var smells of a compiler hack as well. Not good. To me it looks like one of those things which will go into internal best practise lists as "Do not use", as it's hard to maintain and hard to read.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Willem Meints — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 10:59:02 GMT

Personally I think that C# 2.0 is a great improvement on the existing C# language. But the stuff that is coming in C# 3.0 is a little weird.

var x = new Person(); ?????

Sounds like we are going back to the vb6.0 period. It not only looks dirty, but I think it will be a huge source of trouble.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

sakisp — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 11:40:02 GMT

First .NET killed applications performance, now C# tries hard to be the next ...SQL and VB.NET mimics C#, C++/CLI is now a JITed (~~native~~) compiler that "just works" (!), WPF is the future GUI but we have to use Winforms until its finished. Then we have Microsoft who use none of the above "innovations" in Vista or Office12. Great...

I wonder what else will happen to developers in the future. BTW a crystal ball is a necessary programmer's gadget...

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Zhou Yong — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 11:59:40 GMT

WillemM wrote:

Personally I think that C# 2.0 is a great improvement on the existing C# language. But the stuff that is coming in C# 3.0 is a little weird.

var x = new Person(); ?????

Sounds like we are going back to the vb6.0 period. It not only looks dirty, but I think it will be a huge source of trouble.

    OMG, the keyword var here let me think of javascript now, it's a weakly typed language, and sometimes quite tedious to program in.
    Anders, var is really really a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad idea:(

    Sheva

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

Tommy Carlier — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 12:34:12 GMT

The difference is, that this var is a strongly typed var: if you say 'var x = 3;', the type of x will be int, and will not be able to change. Even Intellisense will detect that x is an int. I think it's nice that we can type "var myDict = new Dictionary();" instead of "Dictionary myDict = new Dictionary();". It doesn't make C# weakly typed.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

androidi — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 13:53:36 GMT

Beer28 wrote:

jsrfc58 wrote:
Everything comes down to machine language anyway, whether it is a runtime (.NET) or a program written in C/C++.

True, BUT compile a small C program that sleeps for 10 secs, and check your resources while it's in main() sleeping, then compile the same program with C# and .NET, then you'll see that yes, both run CPU opcodes, obviously at the end of the road, but one compiles to much smaller more compact instruction sets and reserved memory than the other.

Certainly, however if you need a complex program done in reasonable amount of time and cost, how would that compare? Or are you claiming that a program that sleeps for x secs should be used as reference in this case too? There will be a time when people start to expect a bit more from their "simple programs" - imagine the Star Trek ship computer.

Coffeehouse - A Petition to 'Save' C# !!!

marlowe — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 22:07:28 GMT

sbc wrote:

What Microsoft products are written in .NET 1.0/1.1?

Ok, I'll bite. What is ASP.NET for $2000, alex?