Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Go go java! ... play catch-up with C#!

z1xgZtgVQr5h.jpg I am reading Stephen Colebourne's JDK 7 language changes - Devoxx votes!.

At the devoxx conference people voted on possible future features of the Java language.

As a developer with a .NET background, I can't help to compare with C# ...
  • Properties: In C# since 1.0
  • Null handling: In C# 2.0 with nullable types and according operators
  • List/Map syntax: In C# since 1.0 with Indexers
  • Extension methods: In C# since 3.0. See here, but C# is going much further with LINQ
  • Method pointers: In C# since 1.0 with delegates. Later extended with anonymous delegates and Lambda Expressions
  • Multiline Strings: In C# since 1.0 with the @-syntax
  • Infer generics: In C# since 3.0 with general type inference

  • ... go go Java! C# is not resting ... 4.0 is in the pipes, offering another truckload of innovation (dynamic capabilities, co-contravariant features for generics, optional parameters (small thumbs up for Java) and named parameters ...)

    Update: The post is discussed at Hacker News.

    3 comments:

    1. C#'s nullable types are only for value types. The discussions regarding Java are wider.

      How are optional parameters a thumbs up for Java? It doesn't have them.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Language is one thing but jvm ecosystem is another thing.
      Honestly for enterprise grade libraries and framework (caching, transaction, persistence, dependancies injection,...) the jvm ecosystem is way above .net.
      As for the language, java is like cobol, usable and understandable for the mass.
      Use Groovy or Scala or Clojure for advanced concepts.
      By the way I would be curious to know how many developers would really use the advanced features of C# 3.0 or 4.0, honestly...

      ReplyDelete
    3. @Ricky
      You are right, I was confusing varargs with optinal parameters.

      Java supports varargs, but so does C#...


      @Anonymous
      Seperating language from platform is certainly important. Personally I don't think Java is that much above .Net. The ecosystem around .Net has grown incredibly fast ... see also the discussion on Hacker News

      ReplyDelete

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