6 ms·

Well, I use it =) C# is a language with a somewhat limited market ("Enterprise" applications running on Windows Servers, and yes, I know about Mono). And in thi

Well, I use it =) C# is a language with a somewhat limited market ("Enterprise" applications running on Windows Servers, and yes, I know about Mono). And in this market, a very strict subset of C# (see: Java) is happily used. I know a lot of people who refrain from using even lambdas and implicit typing, let alone the other "fringe functional stuff", because "they make things complicated".

jagawhowho 13y ago
You're not giving mono the credit it's due.
- egeozcan 13y ago
  I think Mono is great. It's just not a big market but of course it has great potential.
V-2 13y ago
C# is a language with a somewhat limited market ("Enterprise" applications running on Windows Servers, and yes, I know about Mono) One would think that Windows Phone - fastest growing smartphone OS - would go before Mono... geez, I make a living out of desktop C# apps (WPF). Not solely, but on a daily basis.
- smilliken 13y ago
  Fastest growing is easier to achieve when you have low market share. Mono is significantly more important for the future of C# than Windows Phone.
  - Danieru 13y ago
    You can make it even easier by pretending old versions of your mobile OS don't count. Or at least it appears you're allowed to do this if you left all your prior mobile users high & dry after promising them upgrades, twice.
  - V-2 13y ago
    "Easier" doesn't mean easy - many players to the table, we are yet to see whether Tizen or Firefox OS manage to pull that easy feat. What makes you think Mono plays (or is about to play) such a pivotal role?
- Ramp_ 13y ago
  I would be interested to know what these apps are? Who buys them? Where do you sell them? I never found a decent place to sell WPF desktop apps.
nawitus 13y ago
C# is a great language, in fact, I believe it's the best "general language", if there ever was one. The only real problem C# has is it's bad support of non-Windows platforms. As a language, it's excellent.
- miguelrochefort 13y ago
  Xamarin
  - yachtintransit 13y ago
    ahh no good! C# + X-Platform = #Remarkable
viraptor 13y ago
It's in other places too. It's just hiding itself very well. For example Unity and the games that are based on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unity_Engine_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unity_Engine_games
rjbwork 13y ago
I've actually worked at 2 startups using C# and been contacted by 2 others in the last year trying to poach talent. C# is popular in many contexts.
- EnderMB 13y ago
  The same goes for me! My first job was at a startup that used ASP.NET with C# (with PHP for micro-sites). From there, I've worked at agencies where I've built both large sites and small sites using ASP.NET and C#. The whole notion of .NET only being suitable for enterprise development is bullshit.
  - JackMorgan 13y ago
    It's not that it is only ever used for enterprise, just that it seems to be mostly used for enterprise. Think of the licensing costs for visual studio, sqlserver and windows server. Sure there is the Bizspark, but it runs out, and I think most founders would be squeamish with the potential business-technical debt that would represent. At least right now, MS is still seen (although less lately) like the Big Bad, so giving them money to use what you can get for free or near-free elsewhere seems uncool and like bad business sense. I suspect too from my own extremely limited sample size that .NET developers make more money on average than the average of the other languages, so that is also a liability when looking for talent when you have limited cash.
    - V-2 13y ago
      I worked professionally on VS Express for quite a while. Yes it's less convenient, but it can be done. Still a better IDE than (say) NetBeans. I know it's apples and oranges, but I'm speaking about an overall impression.
      - JackMorgan 13y ago
        You should check out Intellij. http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/ http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/ I think its free version is still better than most paid VS editions. The $500 edition is the best IDE I've seen. And it supports basically every language but the three .NET languages.
blar 13y ago
That really cracks me up! I work in C# probably 80% of the year (python and shudder vbscript make up the remainder) and I use lambda statements, implicit typing, and anonymous functions almost every day. The Linq IEnumerable<> extensions are also pretty well indispensable for me. My biggest complaint with C# is the limitations imposed by the static typing system: anonymous functions can't be generic, so you're forced to either declare delegates or explicitly declare each of your anon signatures; and KeyValuePair<> and Tuple<> both force you into sometimes excruciatingly, comically long object declarations, eg Tuple<string, IEnumerable<string>, IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, bool>> I've come to a point where I can comfortably write functional code in the language (though I should stress that I don't write "pure" functional code; I don't fall into the camp that abhors side effects in all scenarios). Day to day, it really is a fine language to work in, notwithstanding a few warts. In all honesty though, I'd rather be working in Python or a LISP most of the time
- JackMorgan 13y ago
  For me, LINQ was definitely a "gateway feature" to the lisp world. If you still use C# at work, I strongly suggest checking out F#: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7048522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7048522

jagawhowho 13y ago

You're not giving mono the credit it's due.

egeozcan 13y ago
I think Mono is great. It's just not a big market but of course it has great potential.

V-2 13y ago

C# is a language with a somewhat limited market ("Enterprise" applications running on Windows Servers, and yes, I know about Mono) One would think that Windows Phone - fastest growing smartphone OS - would go before Mono... geez, I make a living out of desktop C# apps (WPF). Not solely, but on a daily basis.

smilliken 13y ago
Fastest growing is easier to achieve when you have low market share. Mono is significantly more important for the future of C# than Windows Phone.
- Danieru 13y ago
  You can make it even easier by pretending old versions of your mobile OS don't count. Or at least it appears you're allowed to do this if you left all your prior mobile users high & dry after promising them upgrades, twice.
- V-2 13y ago
  "Easier" doesn't mean easy - many players to the table, we are yet to see whether Tizen or Firefox OS manage to pull that easy feat. What makes you think Mono plays (or is about to play) such a pivotal role?
Ramp_ 13y ago
I would be interested to know what these apps are? Who buys them? Where do you sell them? I never found a decent place to sell WPF desktop apps.

nawitus 13y ago

C# is a great language, in fact, I believe it's the best "general language", if there ever was one. The only real problem C# has is it's bad support of non-Windows platforms. As a language, it's excellent.

miguelrochefort 13y ago
Xamarin
- yachtintransit 13y ago
  ahh no good! C# + X-Platform = #Remarkable

viraptor 13y ago

It's in other places too. It's just hiding itself very well. For example Unity and the games that are based on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unity_Engine_games http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unity_Engine_games

rjbwork 13y ago

I've actually worked at 2 startups using C# and been contacted by 2 others in the last year trying to poach talent. C# is popular in many contexts.

EnderMB 13y ago
The same goes for me! My first job was at a startup that used ASP.NET with C# (with PHP for micro-sites). From there, I've worked at agencies where I've built both large sites and small sites using ASP.NET and C#. The whole notion of .NET only being suitable for enterprise development is bullshit.
- JackMorgan 13y ago
  It's not that it is only ever used for enterprise, just that it seems to be mostly used for enterprise. Think of the licensing costs for visual studio, sqlserver and windows server. Sure there is the Bizspark, but it runs out, and I think most founders would be squeamish with the potential business-technical debt that would represent. At least right now, MS is still seen (although less lately) like the Big Bad, so giving them money to use what you can get for free or near-free elsewhere seems uncool and like bad business sense. I suspect too from my own extremely limited sample size that .NET developers make more money on average than the average of the other languages, so that is also a liability when looking for talent when you have limited cash.
  - V-2 13y ago
    I worked professionally on VS Express for quite a while. Yes it's less convenient, but it can be done. Still a better IDE than (say) NetBeans. I know it's apples and oranges, but I'm speaking about an overall impression.
    - JackMorgan 13y ago
      You should check out Intellij. http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/ http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/ I think its free version is still better than most paid VS editions. The $500 edition is the best IDE I've seen. And it supports basically every language but the three .NET languages.

blar 13y ago

That really cracks me up! I work in C# probably 80% of the year (python and shudder vbscript make up the remainder) and I use lambda statements, implicit typing, and anonymous functions almost every day. The Linq IEnumerable<> extensions are also pretty well indispensable for me. My biggest complaint with C# is the limitations imposed by the static typing system: anonymous functions can't be generic, so you're forced to either declare delegates or explicitly declare each of your anon signatures; and KeyValuePair<> and Tuple<> both force you into sometimes excruciatingly, comically long object declarations, eg Tuple<string, IEnumerable<string>, IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, bool>> I've come to a point where I can comfortably write functional code in the language (though I should stress that I don't write "pure" functional code; I don't fall into the camp that abhors side effects in all scenarios). Day to day, it really is a fine language to work in, notwithstanding a few warts. In all honesty though, I'd rather be working in Python or a LISP most of the time

JackMorgan 13y ago
For me, LINQ was definitely a "gateway feature" to the lisp world. If you still use C# at work, I strongly suggest checking out F#: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7048522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7048522