4 ms·

Note that array covariance is largely considered a design mistake and if .NET was to be redone it wouldn't have one (and a bunch of smaller things that are an a

Note that array covariance is largely considered a design mistake and if .NET was to be redone it wouldn't have one (and a bunch of smaller things that are an artifact of generics getting introduced in C# 2.0 and not 1.0, well, the problem is much worse in Go heh). Other data structures like List<T>, Span<T>, etc. do away with covariance. There's an upcast for ReadOnlySpan<T> but only because it's zero-cost and does not introduce the issues stemming from covariance. Luckily, you almost never see someone use array covariance beyond occasional object[] upcasts (and the compiler is also good at reasoning whether to insert covariance checks or not).

pjmlp 2y ago
Well, .NET only exists in first place because of Sun's lawsuit, Ext-VOS was designed with J++ in mind. Thus having high compatibility with how Java used to be was a big factor designing C# 1.00
- neonsunset 2y ago
  25 years ago :)
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Yes, and 25 years later Java is still relevant enough that Microsoft has become yet again a Java vendor, with their own distribution, made the key contribution for Windows ARM support, VSCode Java experience is still ahead of C# DevKit thanks collaboration with Red-Hat, and doesn't require an additional licence. At the same time, JVM has embraced the polyglot ecosystem CLR was supposed to be, while C# seems to have sucked the life of all those language implementations demoed at the launch back in 2001, and .NET SDK being offered on computer magazine CDs. Which is kind of interesting, how things have changed 25 years later. At least we finally have cross platform support (ignoring Mono and DotGNU efforts), and good AOT instead of NGEN, which should have been there on .NET 1.0.
    - neonsunset 2y ago
      If you have to reach for popularity as an argument in favour of technology X or platform Y, perhaps it's not a technical point you want to make? > VSCode Java experience is still ahead of C# DevKit thanks collaboration with Red-Hat, and doesn't require an additional licence. I'm not sure if you're intentionally attempting to make inflammatory replies or something in what I said rubbed you the wrong way. (for other readers - this marks me posting for 20th time here that DevKit is an optional product and thousands of developers are happily coding in C# in VS Code and VSCodium, Neovim and Emacs without ever running into it)
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Unfortunately not always the best technology wins out, and the turns that go around them are nonetheless quite interesting. I am stating facts, do you want links to .NET team interviews where they assert it is a business decision VSCode is never going to achieve feature parity with VS for .NET? VSCode for Java doesn't have such artificial constraint, hence the better tooling, mainly implemented by Red-Hat. C# DevKit being optional doesn't change the fact specific features are only available when users opt into using it, with a corrrespondig Visual Studio license. And yes, this irritates me, because I feel it is a disservice to .NET community how Linux and macOS developers are kind of 2nd class, not by .NET team themselves, but higher up Microsoft management.
        neonsunset 2y ago
        No, I don't. Developer tooling teams which ship Visual Studio and DevKit are almost completely separate from the teams overseeing the development of .NET itself (including the team responsible for the SDK). And, honestly, I could not care less because it does not affect me or my colleagues in any material way, nor it affects the actual Linux or macOS users. And also, have you tried writing Java in VS Code? I have and it is overall worse (read: less stable) than just using IntelliJ Idea in a way that isn't an issue when doing so in C#/Go/Rust/TS.
        pjmlp 2y ago
- kgeist 2y ago
  .NET is still called COM+ in .NET's source code, they initially envisioned .NET as a successor to COM. They wrote about COM+ in 1997 in an issue of Microsoft Systems Journal (they talked about GC, runtime type info, etc.) It makes me believe the idea for .NET (COM+) existed before the lawsuit. It's possible that after the lawsuit, the COM+ and J++ teams were merged to reposition it as mainly a Java alternative.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    That was the Ext-VOS project, that I made a reference to. WinRT was supposed to replace .NET by the original goals, after the Sinofsky and his followers took over Windows development after Vista, it has been COM as the main API. "Turning to the past to power Windows’ future: An in-depth look at WinRT" https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt-everything-old-is-new-again/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt... However as we all know by know, it didn't went down as expected.
    - kgeist 2y ago
      I never heard about "Ext-VOS". Tried googling it, and all mentions of it are from you ("pjmlp"), on Reddit, Github, etc. :) Where can I read more about it?
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Don Syme from .NET generics and F# fame has written about it, that is how we got made aware of it. Now those blog posts are kind of gone from their original hosts. F# HOPL paper, https://fsharp.org/history/hopl-final/hopl-fsharp.pdf https://fsharp.org/history/hopl-final/hopl-fsharp.pdf Original blog post on way back machine, including the link to "MSR White Paper: Proposed Extensions to COM+ VOS (Draft)" paper. https://web.archive.org/web/20190111203733/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dsyme/2012/07/05/more-c-net-generics-research-project-history-the-msr-white-paper-from-mid-1999/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190111203733/https://blogs.msd...
        2y ago

pjmlp 2y ago

Well, .NET only exists in first place because of Sun's lawsuit, Ext-VOS was designed with J++ in mind. Thus having high compatibility with how Java used to be was a big factor designing C# 1.00

neonsunset 2y ago
25 years ago :)
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Yes, and 25 years later Java is still relevant enough that Microsoft has become yet again a Java vendor, with their own distribution, made the key contribution for Windows ARM support, VSCode Java experience is still ahead of C# DevKit thanks collaboration with Red-Hat, and doesn't require an additional licence. At the same time, JVM has embraced the polyglot ecosystem CLR was supposed to be, while C# seems to have sucked the life of all those language implementations demoed at the launch back in 2001, and .NET SDK being offered on computer magazine CDs. Which is kind of interesting, how things have changed 25 years later. At least we finally have cross platform support (ignoring Mono and DotGNU efforts), and good AOT instead of NGEN, which should have been there on .NET 1.0.
  - neonsunset 2y ago
    If you have to reach for popularity as an argument in favour of technology X or platform Y, perhaps it's not a technical point you want to make? > VSCode Java experience is still ahead of C# DevKit thanks collaboration with Red-Hat, and doesn't require an additional licence. I'm not sure if you're intentionally attempting to make inflammatory replies or something in what I said rubbed you the wrong way. (for other readers - this marks me posting for 20th time here that DevKit is an optional product and thousands of developers are happily coding in C# in VS Code and VSCodium, Neovim and Emacs without ever running into it)
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Unfortunately not always the best technology wins out, and the turns that go around them are nonetheless quite interesting. I am stating facts, do you want links to .NET team interviews where they assert it is a business decision VSCode is never going to achieve feature parity with VS for .NET? VSCode for Java doesn't have such artificial constraint, hence the better tooling, mainly implemented by Red-Hat. C# DevKit being optional doesn't change the fact specific features are only available when users opt into using it, with a corrrespondig Visual Studio license. And yes, this irritates me, because I feel it is a disservice to .NET community how Linux and macOS developers are kind of 2nd class, not by .NET team themselves, but higher up Microsoft management.
      - neonsunset 2y ago
        No, I don't. Developer tooling teams which ship Visual Studio and DevKit are almost completely separate from the teams overseeing the development of .NET itself (including the team responsible for the SDK). And, honestly, I could not care less because it does not affect me or my colleagues in any material way, nor it affects the actual Linux or macOS users. And also, have you tried writing Java in VS Code? I have and it is overall worse (read: less stable) than just using IntelliJ Idea in a way that isn't an issue when doing so in C#/Go/Rust/TS.
        pjmlp 2y ago
kgeist 2y ago
.NET is still called COM+ in .NET's source code, they initially envisioned .NET as a successor to COM. They wrote about COM+ in 1997 in an issue of Microsoft Systems Journal (they talked about GC, runtime type info, etc.) It makes me believe the idea for .NET (COM+) existed before the lawsuit. It's possible that after the lawsuit, the COM+ and J++ teams were merged to reposition it as mainly a Java alternative.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  That was the Ext-VOS project, that I made a reference to. WinRT was supposed to replace .NET by the original goals, after the Sinofsky and his followers took over Windows development after Vista, it has been COM as the main API. "Turning to the past to power Windows’ future: An in-depth look at WinRT" https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt-everything-old-is-new-again/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt... However as we all know by know, it didn't went down as expected.
  - kgeist 2y ago
    I never heard about "Ext-VOS". Tried googling it, and all mentions of it are from you ("pjmlp"), on Reddit, Github, etc. :) Where can I read more about it?
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Don Syme from .NET generics and F# fame has written about it, that is how we got made aware of it. Now those blog posts are kind of gone from their original hosts. F# HOPL paper, https://fsharp.org/history/hopl-final/hopl-fsharp.pdf https://fsharp.org/history/hopl-final/hopl-fsharp.pdf Original blog post on way back machine, including the link to "MSR White Paper: Proposed Extensions to COM+ VOS (Draft)" paper. https://web.archive.org/web/20190111203733/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dsyme/2012/07/05/more-c-net-generics-research-project-history-the-msr-white-paper-from-mid-1999/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190111203733/https://blogs.msd...
      - 2y ago