Personal Introduction To C#

Background

I have never learned C# for two main reasons. First, as C# is a direct competitor to java, I have always favoured to use a technology I already master over a new technology. Second, I am a member of the Microsoft Haters Social Club; for almost theological reasons, I avoid anything that is remotly close to the MS world. Consequently, C# was label “I know it exists” by my brain for many years.

But now, I have 2 separate reasons to learn C#. First, I would like to play with a game engine and most of them are using C# as scripting language. Second, I might teach a programming class that uses C# as main programming language

Prejudices

My main prejudice about C# is that it is a copy of java. I believe the language has been developped by the same person as typescript (which is amazing). I know stackoverflow is written with it and runs on an incredibly low number of servers. I believe Rich Hickey said that C# async mechanism has been more inspiring then Go when he wrote clojure’s core async library. C# garbage collector is/used to be written in a single C++ file. Finally, I have hearded that C# runtime is way more typed than the JVM.

Fact Checking

C# is a direct competitor to java

False, it is true that both programming languages targets web servers but it is an over simplification. Both ecosystem has devlop in different areas. Java is used to build things such as databases. C# is almost uiquitous to build window’s desktop applications and is used for scripting in game engines.

C# is that it is a copy of java.

Mainly debunked, wikipedia documents well that c# has (perhaps) started as a clone but is now on a different course.

The language has been developped by the same person as typescript

True, Anders Hejlsberg has been leading development of both team at different time.

Stackoverflow is written with it and runs on an incredibly low number of servers.

Perhaps outdated, according to a 2014 blog post, stackoverflow runs on 25 servers and is written in “.net”.

Rich Hickey said that C# async mechanism has been more inspiring then Go

It’s complicated, “Clojure core.async” by Rich Hickey (2013) is where clojure core.async is explained with great eloquence.

C# garbage collector is/used to be written in a single C++ file

Dubious, yes there is a large .cpp file in dotnet’s repository but is it “everything”… I cannot guanrantee.

C# fun facts

Mascot

C# used to have an amazing mascot! There’s even a github ticket about it!

C# was supposed to be named “cool”

Verbatim from wikipedia:

In January 1999, Anders Hejlsberg formed a team to build a new language at the time called Cool, which stood for “C-like Object Oriented Language”

Important Readings

Relation between C# and .NET

Even if wikipedia’s .NET article is small, it is good. It explain that .NET is a run time and C# a language on that platform.

Random Reading Notes

Build system

compiler

The compiler is named dotnet (not csc). The program description is written in a *csproj xml file.

Single file executable

It does not seams common but creating a single file executable is possible via the and explained in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file/overview .

Naming Conventions

PascalCase is not my personal favourite but seams extremly follow by the C# community. Coding covention is well explained at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/coding-style/coding-conventions

, t and s_ prefixes are simply crazy. IDE (and Microsoft sells IDEs) are way better at pin pinpointing private, static and thread static method than conventions.

Language

get, set keywords are quite actually. It’s a little bit like Python’s @property but with (in reality), reserve words.

null operators are amazing. All languages that have null should have ?and ??operators.

Runtime

tail call optimization, is not part of the language. Loops must be loops. By checking locally, call loops seam slow.

linq is just amazing. This is a game changer.

Conclusion

After about 1 day playing with C#, I am pleased to see that it lives to its hype. C# is, to my personal taste, a nice language. Something like friendlier java.