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My experience is probably colored by .NET/WinUI but when I was dabbling in writing a Windows desktop app a few months ago I can't say I loved C#. My background

My experience is probably colored by .NET/WinUI but when I was dabbling in writing a Windows desktop app a few months ago I can't say I loved C#. My background has no Java in it so maybe that's why, but a lot of things that come standard as part of Swift seem to be in external libraries with .NET/C#, and it felt like some things were different for the sake of being different. Point in case, with Swift and Kotlin I've gotten used to chaining various transformation functions (map, compactMap, flatMap, filter, sort, reduce, etc) and some of these don't have a 1:1 equivalent in C# which was a huge hit to productivity, even if the same result is achievable via other means. And while it's tangential, Xaml drives me absolutely bonkers. It's like the worst parts of iOS Storyboards and Android Framework XML layouts except there's no escape hatch for those looking to build a UI in pure code (Android Framework is a bit of an offender here too, but Jetpack Compose looks to remedy that).

FlyingSnake 4y ago
> some of these don't have a 1:1 equivalent in C# which was a huge hit to productivity This is interesting because all these magical functions (zip, map, Rx etc) have roots in LINQ which sprung from .Net world. I find it hard to believe that the battle tested CLR and C# doesn't have the equivalent functions.
- lmm 4y ago
  > all these magical functions (zip, map, Rx etc) have roots in LINQ which sprung from .Net world No they don't. They're essentially unchanged from ML back in the 1970s. The part that was new in C# was the SQL-like syntax on top of them, and most subsequent languages haven't considered that worth adopting.
neonsunset 4y ago
All these are part of standard library. Map is Select, Filter is Where, Reduce is Aggregate, etc. You can write C# in a functional style easily, it is one of the premiere features. UI frameworks on the other hand…I feel your pain.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  I did find and use Select and Where at least, but I recall running into caveats with them or with their interactions with other parts of the language that meant that they couldn't be used identically. I don't remember specifically what it was since it's been a while but I remember it being frustrating. I should probably find a cheat sheet of equivalents if I try writing it again.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    The C# equivalents uses SQL naming, knowing this makes it much easier to understand.

FlyingSnake 4y ago

> some of these don't have a 1:1 equivalent in C# which was a huge hit to productivity This is interesting because all these magical functions (zip, map, Rx etc) have roots in LINQ which sprung from .Net world. I find it hard to believe that the battle tested CLR and C# doesn't have the equivalent functions.

lmm 4y ago
> all these magical functions (zip, map, Rx etc) have roots in LINQ which sprung from .Net world No they don't. They're essentially unchanged from ML back in the 1970s. The part that was new in C# was the SQL-like syntax on top of them, and most subsequent languages haven't considered that worth adopting.

neonsunset 4y ago

All these are part of standard library. Map is Select, Filter is Where, Reduce is Aggregate, etc. You can write C# in a functional style easily, it is one of the premiere features. UI frameworks on the other hand…I feel your pain.

kitsunesoba 4y ago
I did find and use Select and Where at least, but I recall running into caveats with them or with their interactions with other parts of the language that meant that they couldn't be used identically. I don't remember specifically what it was since it's been a while but I remember it being frustrating. I should probably find a cheat sheet of equivalents if I try writing it again.
- Jensson 4y ago
  The C# equivalents uses SQL naming, knowing this makes it much easier to understand.