7 ms·

C# incidentally solved many other shortcomings with Java. The languages are getting closer to parity, but for many years C# was pretty far ahead (if you only co

by Silfen 10y ago

C# incidentally solved many other shortcomings with Java. The languages are getting closer to parity, but for many years C# was pretty far ahead (if you only consider language features and not tooling/ecosystem). Between reified generics, better native interop, and many functional features, C# felt and feels more concise than idiomatic Java. And I've written plenty of both. Disclaimer: MSFT employee expressing personal views

jimmaswell 10y ago
In what way was C#'s tooling not better?
- artimaeis 10y ago
  Java seemed to have a lot more options for deployments and monitoring for a long time. More advanced 3rd party libraries in general. It had simply been around longer and thus had those tools available. Now that C# has been standard for a while almost all of those tools have a C# equivalent. As a .NET dev I'd actually argue that the things available to C# now are actually better (especially Visual Studio), but that's certainly biased.
  - jimmaswell 10y ago
    VS was probably always a better coding and debugging environment. I've used VS as far back as VS 2010 and it's always been great for C#, but I've never had more than a mediocre experience writing Java in an IDE. Did anything support VS's level of convenient debugging ability for Java?
    - pkd 10y ago
      I have not used VS as much as I have used Java IDEs, but I'd say they are on par. VS shines in how well the debugger is integrated with the rest of the environment, but both NetBeans and IDEA offer very close to the same level of convenience. Admittedly, I have never liked the Eclipse debugger.
  - bad_user 10y ago
    Meh, to make Visual Studio do IDE-like things, people install things like ReSharper, built by the same people that are building IntelliJ IDEA. And I worked with both and IntelliJ is much smarter, and has support for way more technologies. And yes, it's built in Java and can be sluggish, but then again I'm using it on both Linux and OS X and runs just fine on Windows too, so it doesn't tie me to an OS I don't want. Also, I keep mentioning this, but .NET lacks a build tool like Maven or something similar (SBT, Gradle, Leiningen). .NET is still at the level of Ant / Make and .NET devs don't realize what a huge difference that is.
    - jimmaswell 10y ago
      What am I missing building projects with VS or xbuild?
      - Nullabillity 10y ago
        For one, sane dependency management that doesn't require vendoring.
        jimmaswell 10y ago
        You can reference projects or other files that are in submodules. What about the .NET build process makes vendoring the only option? Even so, it's always been more convenient in my experience when something just ships with fixed versions of dependencies already inside it. Those versions are known to work with the codebase and there's no chance of new bugs or other incompatible behavior being introduced from updates to the dependencies.
        Nullabillity 10y ago
        > What about the .NET build process makes vendoring the only option? AFAIK, even NuGet doesn't allow you to just check in the dependency spec, rather than the contents of all of your dependencies. > Even so, it's always been more convenient in my experience when something just ships with fixed versions of dependencies already inside it. I agree. But that doesn't mean that they belong in Git, nor that they should even be copied to every single project.
  - vardump 10y ago
    > ...things available to C# now are actually better (especially Visual Studio), but that's certainly biased. You call Visual Studio good? Have you actually used it? VS2015 is painfully slow, and yes, I've installed all of the updates and I have no plugins or such. Heck, even Eclipse feels zippy compared to it. Something as simple as finding next text search match takes about a second. Changing to a different source code tab is also sluggish. Context sensitive search (right click identifier -> Find All References) is useless for anything that is even a bit generic. Instead of actually analyzing context, it seems to simply grep all reachable files for a text string. Including SDK headers... I use VS2015 only for C++, maybe that can have something to do with it. Maybe it works better for C#? I also dislike how I have to login to use an IDE. Once it cost me 30 minutes of working time, I couldn't login to a god damn IDE that had an expired license. That's a great way to make developers hate your product and ecosystem.
    - to3m 10y ago
      There's a box you can tick that says no to all of that stuff, though I don't know if you can access it after the first run. (I never have to log in when I run Visual Studio.)
      - vardump 10y ago
        No, at least in the version I have, license expires quickly. If I don't enter the credentials, it won't be able to renew the license, so it's not possible to use it at all. Regardless of any checkbox ticks.
    - jimmaswell 10y ago
      It is a lot better for C#. All the features work perfectly for .NET languages, but because of the nature of C++ it's a lot harder to get these kinds of things working well with it. Some answers about why are here: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-C++-intellisense-so-bad-in-Visual-Studio https://www.quora.com/Why-is-C++-intellisense-so-bad-in-Visu... Eclipse can run better on a potato but it's also very simplistic. You should also be able to turn off most of the features you don't want in VS.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    I'd have to agree, though I spend most of my time in the node space, today via VS Code (though I don't use the debugger at all). VS Proper with C# has felt better to work with than any Java tool/project I've ever used, though haven't done much with that ever. I jumped on the C# bandwagon in late 2001, early 2002 when it was still in development. Started moving over towards node around 5-6 years ago, and am currently looking for a reason to work with rust or go. Most of my issues with C# have always, like Java, been about "Enterprise" frameworks, patters and practices implemented where they aren't needed, and complexity for complexity's sake. VS + C# is pretty damned nice, if you can work on a green project and not bring in everything under the sun.

by Silfen 10y ago

jimmaswell 10y ago

In what way was C#'s tooling not better?

artimaeis 10y ago
Java seemed to have a lot more options for deployments and monitoring for a long time. More advanced 3rd party libraries in general. It had simply been around longer and thus had those tools available. Now that C# has been standard for a while almost all of those tools have a C# equivalent. As a .NET dev I'd actually argue that the things available to C# now are actually better (especially Visual Studio), but that's certainly biased.
- jimmaswell 10y ago
  VS was probably always a better coding and debugging environment. I've used VS as far back as VS 2010 and it's always been great for C#, but I've never had more than a mediocre experience writing Java in an IDE. Did anything support VS's level of convenient debugging ability for Java?
  - pkd 10y ago
    I have not used VS as much as I have used Java IDEs, but I'd say they are on par. VS shines in how well the debugger is integrated with the rest of the environment, but both NetBeans and IDEA offer very close to the same level of convenience. Admittedly, I have never liked the Eclipse debugger.
- bad_user 10y ago
  Meh, to make Visual Studio do IDE-like things, people install things like ReSharper, built by the same people that are building IntelliJ IDEA. And I worked with both and IntelliJ is much smarter, and has support for way more technologies. And yes, it's built in Java and can be sluggish, but then again I'm using it on both Linux and OS X and runs just fine on Windows too, so it doesn't tie me to an OS I don't want. Also, I keep mentioning this, but .NET lacks a build tool like Maven or something similar (SBT, Gradle, Leiningen). .NET is still at the level of Ant / Make and .NET devs don't realize what a huge difference that is.
  - jimmaswell 10y ago
    What am I missing building projects with VS or xbuild?
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      For one, sane dependency management that doesn't require vendoring.
      - jimmaswell 10y ago
        You can reference projects or other files that are in submodules. What about the .NET build process makes vendoring the only option? Even so, it's always been more convenient in my experience when something just ships with fixed versions of dependencies already inside it. Those versions are known to work with the codebase and there's no chance of new bugs or other incompatible behavior being introduced from updates to the dependencies.
        Nullabillity 10y ago
        > What about the .NET build process makes vendoring the only option? AFAIK, even NuGet doesn't allow you to just check in the dependency spec, rather than the contents of all of your dependencies. > Even so, it's always been more convenient in my experience when something just ships with fixed versions of dependencies already inside it. I agree. But that doesn't mean that they belong in Git, nor that they should even be copied to every single project.
- vardump 10y ago
  > ...things available to C# now are actually better (especially Visual Studio), but that's certainly biased. You call Visual Studio good? Have you actually used it? VS2015 is painfully slow, and yes, I've installed all of the updates and I have no plugins or such. Heck, even Eclipse feels zippy compared to it. Something as simple as finding next text search match takes about a second. Changing to a different source code tab is also sluggish. Context sensitive search (right click identifier -> Find All References) is useless for anything that is even a bit generic. Instead of actually analyzing context, it seems to simply grep all reachable files for a text string. Including SDK headers... I use VS2015 only for C++, maybe that can have something to do with it. Maybe it works better for C#? I also dislike how I have to login to use an IDE. Once it cost me 30 minutes of working time, I couldn't login to a god damn IDE that had an expired license. That's a great way to make developers hate your product and ecosystem.
  - to3m 10y ago
    There's a box you can tick that says no to all of that stuff, though I don't know if you can access it after the first run. (I never have to log in when I run Visual Studio.)
    - vardump 10y ago
      No, at least in the version I have, license expires quickly. If I don't enter the credentials, it won't be able to renew the license, so it's not possible to use it at all. Regardless of any checkbox ticks.
  - jimmaswell 10y ago
    It is a lot better for C#. All the features work perfectly for .NET languages, but because of the nature of C++ it's a lot harder to get these kinds of things working well with it. Some answers about why are here: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-C++-intellisense-so-bad-in-Visual-Studio https://www.quora.com/Why-is-C++-intellisense-so-bad-in-Visu... Eclipse can run better on a potato but it's also very simplistic. You should also be able to turn off most of the features you don't want in VS.
- tracker1 10y ago
  I'd have to agree, though I spend most of my time in the node space, today via VS Code (though I don't use the debugger at all). VS Proper with C# has felt better to work with than any Java tool/project I've ever used, though haven't done much with that ever. I jumped on the C# bandwagon in late 2001, early 2002 when it was still in development. Started moving over towards node around 5-6 years ago, and am currently looking for a reason to work with rust or go. Most of my issues with C# have always, like Java, been about "Enterprise" frameworks, patters and practices implemented where they aren't needed, and complexity for complexity's sake. VS + C# is pretty damned nice, if you can work on a green project and not bring in everything under the sun.