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C# is very verbose and tedious compared to more expressive languages - having to deal with CLR types/API at runtime while using a language with very limited exp

C# is very verbose and tedious compared to more expressive languages - having to deal with CLR types/API at runtime while using a language with very limited expressiveness (C#) is not very productive. It's better than Java if that's what you're aiming at - but JVM has an incredible ecosystem of stuff that works - much larger than .NET core which is not very mature in many areas (recently had to revert to .NET 4.7 because some encryption method used by a government SOAP service we were talking to wasn't supported). TypeScript and JS underneath is actually quite malleable - you can escape static typing at any point and revert to simple JS object model when things don't map cleanly in the type system - and then still have types at the boundaries - makes meta-programming trivial in some cases - where it would look like a monstrosity in C#. F# is interesting and has a lot of advantages over C#, but few people seem to be willing to invest the time to pick it up in the .NET community. So I don't really view .NET core as a superior alternative, I've worked in JVM land, they are more mature and while Java sucks there are other languages on top of it as well and are decent to use (Kotlin ~ C#, Scala ~ F#)

Quarrelsome 8y ago
> using a language with _very_ limited expressiveness (C#) is not very productive. o_0. Think you need to check yourself mate. I believe the productiveness of more "expressive" language tends to be undermined by the loss of productivity that occurs when you're compelled to write blog posts or comment on hacker news about how amazingly productive and expressive your language is.
- btschaegg 8y ago
  ...as if we wouldn't be writing comments on HN anyway. ;-)
- rubber_duck 8y ago
  I can do like 3-4 hours of productive work a day realistically - after that I lose focus. I can push this in some periods - but that's the ammount of time I limit myself to be functional over long term. If I need to waste that time sifting trough boilerplate than I'm pretty upset because I get less shit done in that time window. Chatting on forums is a casual brain teaser and keeping up to date on industry stuff.
  - Quarrelsome 8y ago
    I would suggest using more personal language when expressing personal opinion and toning down the force (very). > [I find that] using a language with limited expressiveness (C#) is not very productive for me. Like, I'd figure you can be mad productive in any language (even COBOL?) although I'm only completely cosy in a couple. There's no need to be so dismissive of the tools that others use.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    I don't think "expressiveness" or "boilerplate" are the things that slow me down. I use Go, and I find that it is both expressive and a little verbose, but it's still very simple and there's usually one clear way to do things, so I find that I can move a fair bit faster than I can in C# _or_ Haskell (in the latter case, it might just be that Haskell has a huge learning curve and I'm nowhere near over it).
manigandham 8y ago
Yes Typescript (also from Microsoft) is fascinating and fantastic at combining the strengths of static typing while still maintaining all the flexibility of dynamic types if necessary, however it's pretty much the only realistic non-academic of such a thing, so basically everything else is pales in comparison if that's what you're looking for. Why is C# not expressive? It has the DLR and `dynamic` keyword which behaves just like JS typing if that's what you want, because it seems like your issue is really with static typing in general. Functional languages are nice but it seems C# with functional its slowly and carefully integrated functional extensions is actually more productive for most developers.
- rubber_duck 8y ago
  Dynamic doesn't behave the same as JS typing, you're still using CLR object model and typing rules, you're just losing compile time checks - it gets complicated really fast if you want to do meta programming even with DLR and it's not really ergonomic in C# (like casting/boxing primitive types, etc.) Think about AutoMapper and then compare it to a TS solution using spread operator. How much boilerplate automapper crap do you see in your typical enterprise C# project ? And that's not even touching on functional features, like you can't even have top level functions in C#, it's "one class per file dogma" + multiple wasted boilperplate lines and scrolling. I recently rewrote a C# program to F# - didn't even modify much in terms of semantics (OK having discriminated unions and pattern matching was a huge win in one case), just by using higher level operators and grouping stuff - line count went down to 1/3 and was grouped in to logical modules. I could read one module as a unit and understand it in it's context instead of having to browse 20 definition files with random 5 line type definitions. I could achieve similar improvements by rewriting to TS or Python. C# adds overhead all over the place, people are just so used to it they don't even see it as useless overhead but as inherent problems they need solve - like how many of the popular enterprise patterns are workarounds around language limitations ? When I bring this up people just assume I'm lazy about writing code - but I don't really care about writing the code out - tools mostly generate the boilerplate anyway. Having to read trough that noise is such productivity drain because instead of focusing on the issue at hand I'm focusing on filtering out the bloat from the codebase.

Quarrelsome 8y ago

> using a language with _very_ limited expressiveness (C#) is not very productive. o_0. Think you need to check yourself mate. I believe the productiveness of more "expressive" language tends to be undermined by the loss of productivity that occurs when you're compelled to write blog posts or comment on hacker news about how amazingly productive and expressive your language is.

btschaegg 8y ago
...as if we wouldn't be writing comments on HN anyway. ;-)
rubber_duck 8y ago
I can do like 3-4 hours of productive work a day realistically - after that I lose focus. I can push this in some periods - but that's the ammount of time I limit myself to be functional over long term. If I need to waste that time sifting trough boilerplate than I'm pretty upset because I get less shit done in that time window. Chatting on forums is a casual brain teaser and keeping up to date on industry stuff.
- Quarrelsome 8y ago
  I would suggest using more personal language when expressing personal opinion and toning down the force (very). > [I find that] using a language with limited expressiveness (C#) is not very productive for me. Like, I'd figure you can be mad productive in any language (even COBOL?) although I'm only completely cosy in a couple. There's no need to be so dismissive of the tools that others use.
- weberc2 8y ago
  I don't think "expressiveness" or "boilerplate" are the things that slow me down. I use Go, and I find that it is both expressive and a little verbose, but it's still very simple and there's usually one clear way to do things, so I find that I can move a fair bit faster than I can in C# _or_ Haskell (in the latter case, it might just be that Haskell has a huge learning curve and I'm nowhere near over it).

manigandham 8y ago

Yes Typescript (also from Microsoft) is fascinating and fantastic at combining the strengths of static typing while still maintaining all the flexibility of dynamic types if necessary, however it's pretty much the only realistic non-academic of such a thing, so basically everything else is pales in comparison if that's what you're looking for. Why is C# not expressive? It has the DLR and `dynamic` keyword which behaves just like JS typing if that's what you want, because it seems like your issue is really with static typing in general. Functional languages are nice but it seems C# with functional its slowly and carefully integrated functional extensions is actually more productive for most developers.

rubber_duck 8y ago
Dynamic doesn't behave the same as JS typing, you're still using CLR object model and typing rules, you're just losing compile time checks - it gets complicated really fast if you want to do meta programming even with DLR and it's not really ergonomic in C# (like casting/boxing primitive types, etc.) Think about AutoMapper and then compare it to a TS solution using spread operator. How much boilerplate automapper crap do you see in your typical enterprise C# project ? And that's not even touching on functional features, like you can't even have top level functions in C#, it's "one class per file dogma" + multiple wasted boilperplate lines and scrolling. I recently rewrote a C# program to F# - didn't even modify much in terms of semantics (OK having discriminated unions and pattern matching was a huge win in one case), just by using higher level operators and grouping stuff - line count went down to 1/3 and was grouped in to logical modules. I could read one module as a unit and understand it in it's context instead of having to browse 20 definition files with random 5 line type definitions. I could achieve similar improvements by rewriting to TS or Python. C# adds overhead all over the place, people are just so used to it they don't even see it as useless overhead but as inherent problems they need solve - like how many of the popular enterprise patterns are workarounds around language limitations ? When I bring this up people just assume I'm lazy about writing code - but I don't really care about writing the code out - tools mostly generate the boilerplate anyway. Having to read trough that noise is such productivity drain because instead of focusing on the issue at hand I'm focusing on filtering out the bloat from the codebase.