Some Facts About the Emerging C# Legacy

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clintonG

Fact: F#
Fact: J#
Fact: XEN

Q: What the hell are those 'facts' supposed to mean?

A: Those are new languages and/or a code named development
environment that Microsoft Research has been creating, each
requires the C# compiler [1].

There is growing public awareness of these facts [2].

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/
[2] http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1441657,00.asp

--
<%= Clinton Gallagher
A/E/C Consulting, Web Design, e-Commerce Software Development
Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin USA
NET (e-mail address removed)
URL http://www.metromilwaukee.com/clintongallagher/
 
clintonG said:
Fact: F#
Fact: J#
Fact: XEN

Q: What the hell are those 'facts' supposed to mean?

A: Those are new languages and/or a code named development
environment that Microsoft Research has been creating, each
requires the C# compiler [1].

There is growing public awareness of these facts [2].

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/
[2] http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1441657,00.asp
Click to expand...

While the first two really have nothing to do with C#, Xen (and Polyphonic
C#) are interesting that may result in serious, useful ideas to add to the
language as it evolves. What particuarlly is your issue here?
 
Interesting, but I i'm not sure point #1 is quite accurate.

F# is basically an implementation of caml created back in early 2002 as a
test to see how .NET could implement an ML language - which has as one of
its primary features, parametric polymorphism - in the C-ish world, the
concept of generics or templates. It's quite possible that this test
language contributed directly to the generics implementation we'll see in
..NET 2.0.

J# was a language released shortly after VS.NET that had two primary goals -
allow developers to easily port Java code to .NET, and allow legacy J++ code
to continue to be maintained in .NET.

XEN is basically all of C# plus built-in language support for XML
(heirarchical data) and relational data. However, unlike J#, at this time
it's more like F# - an experiment rather than a practical dev tool.

While all these languages are founded on the CLI (common language
infrastructure) and use the CLR (common language runtime), F# and J# have
their own compilers and AFIAK, don't use the C# compiler. In fact, while XEN
is a direct evolution of C#, J# only looks like C# in that it's another
java-like, simplified-c-like OOP language. F# doesn't even remotely look
like C# at all.

-Rob Teixeira [MVP]
 
Daniel O'Connell said:
Fact: F#
Fact: J#
Fact: XEN

Q: What the hell are those 'facts' supposed to mean?

A: Those are new languages and/or a code named development
environment that Microsoft Research has been creating, each
requires the C# compiler [1].

There is growing public awareness of these facts [2].

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/
[2] http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1441657,00.asp
Click to expand...

While the first two really have nothing to do with C#, Xen (and Polyphonic
C#) are interesting that may result in serious, useful ideas to add to the
language as it evolves. What particuarlly is your issue here?
Click to expand...

Wile I made the mistake of noting J# when I intended to note X# the
point is that all three of the latest development paradigms require
mastery of C# syntax and grammar.

Noting this activity puts contemporary software development into
perspective and should help those whose perceptive traits are stronger than
their intuitive traits plan which language to master when confronted
with the C# vs Visual Basic dilemma.

Thats is, if I can use an apt 'architectural' analogy, the difference
between
an architect using C# and the CAD Operator working as the occupational
programmer using VB.

<%= Clinton Gallagher
 
I erred in noting J# and intended to note X# and appreciate your
description of the contextual relationships. In fact, it seems to me that
X# was the identifier used in the labs for what is now being referred to
as XEN, pronounced as "I do not have a f*cking clue" :-)

<%= Clinton Gallagher









Rob Teixeira said:
Interesting, but I i'm not sure point #1 is quite accurate.

F# is basically an implementation of caml created back in early 2002 as a
test to see how .NET could implement an ML language - which has as one of
its primary features, parametric polymorphism - in the C-ish world, the
concept of generics or templates. It's quite possible that this test
language contributed directly to the generics implementation we'll see in
.NET 2.0.

J# was a language released shortly after VS.NET that had two primary goals -
allow developers to easily port Java code to .NET, and allow legacy J++ code
to continue to be maintained in .NET.

XEN is basically all of C# plus built-in language support for XML
(heirarchical data) and relational data. However, unlike J#, at this time
it's more like F# - an experiment rather than a practical dev tool.

While all these languages are founded on the CLI (common language
infrastructure) and use the CLR (common language runtime), F# and J# have
their own compilers and AFIAK, don't use the C# compiler. In fact, while XEN
is a direct evolution of C#, J# only looks like C# in that it's another
java-like, simplified-c-like OOP language. F# doesn't even remotely look
like C# at all.

-Rob Teixeira [MVP]

Fact: F#
Fact: J#
Fact: XEN

Q: What the hell are those 'facts' supposed to mean?

A: Those are new languages and/or a code named development
environment that Microsoft Research has been creating, each
requires the C# compiler [1].

There is growing public awareness of these facts [2].

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/
[2] http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1441657,00.asp

--
<%= Clinton Gallagher
A/E/C Consulting, Web Design, e-Commerce Software Development
Wauwatosa, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin USA
NET (e-mail address removed)
URL http://www.metromilwaukee.com/clintongallagher/
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Don't assume too much.
VB is getting more bang than C# in VS 2.0. Some of the new features are
merely filling in blanks which C# already supports, such as native support
of operator overload construction and unsigned numeric value types. However,
the runtime library is expanding tremendously as well as a few other
goodies. An architect should be able to create parallel solutions in either
language. This language war is silly, so please don't propogate it. We all
have our personal preferences, but if you want the best jobs, learn both
languages - you'll double your usefullness. All the major features of
Longhorn (the next major revamp of windows) will be implemented to allow
..NET access, and is agnostic about which language you actually use. That is
why they created the CLR/CLI after all.

-Rob Teixeira [MVP]
 
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