4 ms·

Hypothetical Question: Is it at all possible to eventually merge Java and C# back into a single language? Say in 2030 ?

cdbattags 7y ago
I'd say not or at least they'd have to abstract for different runtimes .NET/Core and JVM have quite diverged I would think
ahoka 7y ago
No. Why would anyone do that? Maybe C# could be moved to the JVM, that could make some sense, but unlikely.
m4r35n357 7y ago
What would be the point? C# has been well and truly tied to the Visual Studio / MSSQL / Resharper stack.
- efdee 7y ago
  Of course you can use other IDEs (VS Code, Rider, Monodevelop) and databases (Postgres, Sqlite, Mysql, Oracle). And plenty of people don't use R# either, but I prefer to do so.
UglyToad 7y ago
Funnily enough I was thinking an almost identical thing this morning. We had IKVM [0] for.NET, which if I understood it correctly allowed Java to run on the CLR (I probably misunderstood this). I'm not entirely sure why Microsoft don't build something official to run Java code on the CLR/.NET, is it a technical or legal limitation, or simply that there's no business need? [0]: https://www.ikvm.net/ https://www.ikvm.net/
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  It would be huge if they implemented a way to run java libraries from .NET. Be it ikvm or something else. This would immediately open up huge amounts of very interesting libraries to .NET. For example Bouncy Castle or Lucene. Years ago I worked on a document search app. Wrote it in .NET but then almost all interesting libraries were in Java exclusively or with an outdated .NET port. Being able to use the up to date java libraries would have been huge. This experience alone makes me reluctant to use .NET. The Java ecosystem is just much broader.
- Nelkins 7y ago
  An active fork of IKVM can be found here: https://github.com/jessielesbian/ikvm https://github.com/jessielesbian/ikvm Also re: using Java with .NET, there's also their Java Interop project which is used with Xamarin: https://github.com/xamarin/java.interop https://github.com/xamarin/java.interop
- lazeebee 7y ago
  It seems Microsoft is doing .net Java introp: https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/issues/2517 https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/issues/2517
phillipcarter 7y ago
Not without an enormous amount of breaking changes. The severity of them would be so high that no C# or Java programmer could ever convert their existing code.
DannyB2 7y ago
Not likely. Something more likely. Two things. Make dot NET a truly first class citizen on other platforms. Including the ecosystem of C# and dot NET libraries. Some of this may be difficult due to the long time that dot NET has been Windows only. There would have to be a clear boundary between APIs and features of the runtime and libraries that are only available on Windows. I think Microsoft is already making moves in this direction. But I don't keep up with it. Make Java a truly first class citizen on Windows.

I'd say not or at least they'd have to abstract for different runtimes .NET/Core and JVM have quite diverged I would think

ahoka 7y ago

No. Why would anyone do that? Maybe C# could be moved to the JVM, that could make some sense, but unlikely.

m4r35n357 7y ago

What would be the point? C# has been well and truly tied to the Visual Studio / MSSQL / Resharper stack.

efdee 7y ago
Of course you can use other IDEs (VS Code, Rider, Monodevelop) and databases (Postgres, Sqlite, Mysql, Oracle). And plenty of people don't use R# either, but I prefer to do so.

UglyToad 7y ago

Funnily enough I was thinking an almost identical thing this morning. We had IKVM [0] for.NET, which if I understood it correctly allowed Java to run on the CLR (I probably misunderstood this). I'm not entirely sure why Microsoft don't build something official to run Java code on the CLR/.NET, is it a technical or legal limitation, or simply that there's no business need? [0]: https://www.ikvm.net/ https://www.ikvm.net/

Ididntdothis 7y ago
It would be huge if they implemented a way to run java libraries from .NET. Be it ikvm or something else. This would immediately open up huge amounts of very interesting libraries to .NET. For example Bouncy Castle or Lucene. Years ago I worked on a document search app. Wrote it in .NET but then almost all interesting libraries were in Java exclusively or with an outdated .NET port. Being able to use the up to date java libraries would have been huge. This experience alone makes me reluctant to use .NET. The Java ecosystem is just much broader.
Nelkins 7y ago
An active fork of IKVM can be found here: https://github.com/jessielesbian/ikvm https://github.com/jessielesbian/ikvm Also re: using Java with .NET, there's also their Java Interop project which is used with Xamarin: https://github.com/xamarin/java.interop https://github.com/xamarin/java.interop
lazeebee 7y ago
It seems Microsoft is doing .net Java introp: https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/issues/2517 https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/issues/2517

phillipcarter 7y ago

Not without an enormous amount of breaking changes. The severity of them would be so high that no C# or Java programmer could ever convert their existing code.

DannyB2 7y ago

Not likely. Something more likely. Two things. Make dot NET a truly first class citizen on other platforms. Including the ecosystem of C# and dot NET libraries. Some of this may be difficult due to the long time that dot NET has been Windows only. There would have to be a clear boundary between APIs and features of the runtime and libraries that are only available on Windows. I think Microsoft is already making moves in this direction. But I don't keep up with it. Make Java a truly first class citizen on Windows.