4 ms·

It still has some platform dependency that Mono or .Net Core doesn't fully solve. It's a very pleasant language to work in, especially compared to Java, but th

It still has some platform dependency that Mono or .Net Core doesn't fully solve. It's a very pleasant language to work in, especially compared to Java, but there are so many other really nice C adjacent languages in the field that it's hard to argue for if you're not in that ecosystem.

virtue3 2y ago
I think that might have been the case a while ago but they have even dropped .net-core and it's now just .net and cross platform. It appears to have been the case since .net 5 (2020) (I've also stopped paying attention to MS a bit before then). "Yes, .NET 5 is cross-platform and can be installed on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It aims to provide a consistent development experience across platforms by unifying different .NET flavors, including .NET Core, .NET Framework, .NET Standard, and Mono. .NET 5 also aligns all frameworks to support a common set of APIs, making it easier to build cross-platform libraries."
- toyg 2y ago
  Yeah but the way they've done it, iirc, is by cutting libraries out of Core that really should be in there. I remember looking recently at some pretty basic stuff that broke in 6, simply because for some reason the relevant APIs (which were pretty low-level and not really related to anything driver-specific) were marked as Windows-only and ripped out of Core and Host packages. So in theory it's all independent but in practice the best bits are still on Windows.
  - nkozyra 2y ago
    This was my experience trying to rewrite a service about a year ago.
  - smaudet 2y ago
    It has been amusing watching them try to get cross platform going, I used to hear how they (c#/.net) did such a good job with backwards compatibility, however Java had been doing crazier platforms for longer and their cross platform/backwards compat is in a much better state... although they are much more difficult to use to integrate deeply with a system.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - davidfowl 2y ago
    What stuff was that?
neonsunset 2y ago
And C# is the nicest of them (because other options are worse in one aspect or another, especially performance).
- vsnf 2y ago
  There are many metrics by which C# is the nicest language, but after 10+ years of doing (and loving) C# development, I find that I prefer Dart as a C#-like language these days.
  - throwaway2990 2y ago
    [dead]
alkonaut 2y ago
What dependencies/limitations are that?
- keltex 2y ago
  The biggest one I've run into is GDI support (Graphics Device Interface). This covers things like two-dimensional vector graphics, imaging, and typography. So simple things like transforming or drawing images are no longer supported. There are decent third party open-source libaries like SixLabors/ImageSharp that have stared to fill the gap.
  - alkonaut 2y ago
    System.Drawing was always just a wrapper for GDI(+), and you CAN use it on Linux via using System.Drawing.Common which is a wrapper for GDI+ (Windows) or something else like libgdi+ on non-windows. It works - but it feels more like a compat hack than anything else. System.Drawing wouldn't look the way it does if it wasn't designed to be a Windows only API around GDI+. ImageSharp was always a good lib but now the license was murdered. Hopefully a true OSS fork will come along. SkiaSharp is also a good alternative, especially if you also need the drawing bits. Missing a Graphics Library in .NET (5-8) is just half the story. It's of course missing an entire UI library too. But Microsoft, perhaps wisely, chose not to also implement a whole xplat UI library. Avalonia/Uno/etc are already there.

virtue3 2y ago

I think that might have been the case a while ago but they have even dropped .net-core and it's now just .net and cross platform. It appears to have been the case since .net 5 (2020) (I've also stopped paying attention to MS a bit before then). "Yes, .NET 5 is cross-platform and can be installed on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It aims to provide a consistent development experience across platforms by unifying different .NET flavors, including .NET Core, .NET Framework, .NET Standard, and Mono. .NET 5 also aligns all frameworks to support a common set of APIs, making it easier to build cross-platform libraries."

toyg 2y ago
Yeah but the way they've done it, iirc, is by cutting libraries out of Core that really should be in there. I remember looking recently at some pretty basic stuff that broke in 6, simply because for some reason the relevant APIs (which were pretty low-level and not really related to anything driver-specific) were marked as Windows-only and ripped out of Core and Host packages. So in theory it's all independent but in practice the best bits are still on Windows.
- nkozyra 2y ago
  This was my experience trying to rewrite a service about a year ago.
- smaudet 2y ago
  It has been amusing watching them try to get cross platform going, I used to hear how they (c#/.net) did such a good job with backwards compatibility, however Java had been doing crazier platforms for longer and their cross platform/backwards compat is in a much better state... although they are much more difficult to use to integrate deeply with a system.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- davidfowl 2y ago
  What stuff was that?

neonsunset 2y ago

And C# is the nicest of them (because other options are worse in one aspect or another, especially performance).

vsnf 2y ago
There are many metrics by which C# is the nicest language, but after 10+ years of doing (and loving) C# development, I find that I prefer Dart as a C#-like language these days.
- throwaway2990 2y ago
  [dead]

alkonaut 2y ago

What dependencies/limitations are that?

keltex 2y ago
The biggest one I've run into is GDI support (Graphics Device Interface). This covers things like two-dimensional vector graphics, imaging, and typography. So simple things like transforming or drawing images are no longer supported. There are decent third party open-source libaries like SixLabors/ImageSharp that have stared to fill the gap.
- alkonaut 2y ago
  System.Drawing was always just a wrapper for GDI(+), and you CAN use it on Linux via using System.Drawing.Common which is a wrapper for GDI+ (Windows) or something else like libgdi+ on non-windows. It works - but it feels more like a compat hack than anything else. System.Drawing wouldn't look the way it does if it wasn't designed to be a Windows only API around GDI+. ImageSharp was always a good lib but now the license was murdered. Hopefully a true OSS fork will come along. SkiaSharp is also a good alternative, especially if you also need the drawing bits. Missing a Graphics Library in .NET (5-8) is just half the story. It's of course missing an entire UI library too. But Microsoft, perhaps wisely, chose not to also implement a whole xplat UI library. Avalonia/Uno/etc are already there.