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A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

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Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#31

Post by moomin »

This is going to be horribly negative so a bit of context first: I'm a professional C# programmer. I love C#, I think it's a great language.

But there's a huge downside: C# only works on Windows. This vastly reduces the number of things you can do with it (yeah, I know about Mono). There's nothing here that suggests that this would have anything other than the same restrictions. So, assuming the language develops into everything that's promised, you're left with something on which you can't do mobile, can't do big data, probably won't work very well for scientific computing. In fact, basically you're still stuck with the same LoB apps and ETL tools that C#'s already great at. And probably the same second rate (not awful, not great) web experience.

So the best you can hope for, basically, is a better C#. But not good enough to take on Java.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds exciting, but equally I worry that it'll be used as a way to generate patents to prevent the ideas being used elsewhere in environments where, tbh, they'd find more use.

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#32

Post by InclinedPlane »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #12

Do we really need more languages? Aren't there enough languages already? I suspect I have just outed myself as a substandard hacker. :( But seriously! There's so many!

Of course we need more languages. We need to continue evolving languages until we get better and better ones. When languages stop improving so significantly from generation to generation then we can start settling down into a smaller number of languages.

We still haven't figured out the best tradeoffs between dynamism and type safety. And we definitely haven't sorted out the best set of features for memory management and error handling. And after that there are a lot of even bigger fish to fry.

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#33

Post by contextfree »

thomasz wrote: post #20
hayksaakian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but this is Microrust It's completely not at all the same, but still familiar to rust programmers. It's but built for the enterprise with advanced patented technology. The yearly license fee will include responsive customer service.

I'm really appalled by the hostility that's being displayed here. This is Microsoft research in Cambridge, not the Xbox one marketing department. You know, the guys who work on Haskell, ported OCAML to .net and generally do a lot of awesome stuff. What have you created that justifies this kind of an attitude?

FYI, this isn't really an MSR project. It (the OS project that spawned the language) was run under the "Startup Business Group" until recently, and developed in Redmond.

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#34

Post by Lerc »

dmpk2k wrote: post #24
Lerc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we need more. There are many ideas to explore still. The "do we really need more languages?" argument predates most of my preferred languages(and that probably includes C and Pascal). I like Haxe, Rust is looking like being really good also. I don't like Go but others do, and that is a really important point. You don't have to like, or use the new languages. As long as someone finds them useful they have a place…

I'm a bit leery of that argument, because in my experience the most important component of a language is its ecosystem. By far. I've played with many really nice languages, but never used them seriously because they had no libraries (let alone quality libraries), had poor tooling, poor documentation, buggy runtime, and almost nobody to compare notes with. In my experience, the largest jump in productivity is librarie…

It is true that most of the best supported languages have been around for a good ten years. But each of those languages had a time when they were only a year old.

I don't deny languages take time to mature. I feel like Haxe is about two-thirds of the way towards being properly Mature. It is approaching 10 years old, yet I feel like it is only just getting started, A lot of people still haven't even heard of it.

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#35

Post by romanovcode »

I would imagine that language like that would be one of the best you could hope for. I hope this language will fit all the bullets.

- C# syntactic sugar

- As fast as C++

- Does not require .NET

- Runs on Windows/Linux/Unix with no problems

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#36

Post by romanovcode »

moomin wrote: post #31

This is going to be horribly negative so a bit of context first: I'm a professional C# programmer. I love C#, I think it's a great language. But there's a huge downside: C# only works on Windows. This vastly reduces the number of things you can do with it (yeah, I know about Mono). There's nothing here that suggests that this would have anything other than the same restrictions. So, assuming the language develops int…

C# developer here, also love the language.

I completely agree and I only hope that this new thing will be just as good as C# but fully cross-platform. It would be great.

>mobile

Xamarin is pretty solid, although it costs a lot.

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#37

Post by rplnt »

moomin wrote: post #31

This is going to be horribly negative so a bit of context first: I'm a professional C# programmer. I love C#, I think it's a great language. But there's a huge downside: C# only works on Windows. This vastly reduces the number of things you can do with it (yeah, I know about Mono). There's nothing here that suggests that this would have anything other than the same restrictions. So, assuming the language develops int…

> yeah, I know about Mono

What's wrong with Mono? I worked with C# only briefly and I really liked it (as opposed to Java.. but maybe I just had better tools). If I'd need something a bit faster than python, C# would probably be my choice. That's assuming it's portable to other platforms...

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#38

Post by tluyben2 »

romanovcode wrote: post #36
moomin wrote: post #31

This is going to be horribly negative so a bit of context first: I'm a professional C# programmer. I love C#, I think it's a great language. But there's a huge downside: C# only works on Windows. This vastly reduces the number of things you can do with it (yeah, I know about Mono). There's nothing here that suggests that this would have anything other than the same restrictions. So, assuming the language develops int…

C# developer here, also love the language. I completely agree and I only hope that this new thing will be just as good as C# but fully cross-platform. It would be great. >mobile Xamarin is pretty solid, although it costs a lot.

Xamarin has been nice so far; it's not that expensive compared to any serious project, but it should be cheaper to capture larger audiences. The free version is very crippled even for trivial projects.

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#39

Post by OGC »

rplnt wrote: post #37
moomin wrote: post #31

This is going to be horribly negative so a bit of context first: I'm a professional C# programmer. I love C#, I think it's a great language. But there's a huge downside: C# only works on Windows. This vastly reduces the number of things you can do with it (yeah, I know about Mono). There's nothing here that suggests that this would have anything other than the same restrictions. So, assuming the language develops int…

> yeah, I know about Mono What's wrong with Mono? I worked with C# only briefly and I really liked it (as opposed to Java.. but maybe I just had better tools). If I'd need something a bit faster than python, C# would probably be my choice. That's assuming it's portable to other platforms...

Work with Mono and report back..

Re: A glimpse into a new programming language under development at Microsoft

#40

Post by tluyben2 »

Lerc wrote: post #34
dmpk2k wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit leery of that argument, because in my experience the most important component of a language is its ecosystem. By far. I've played with many really nice languages, but never used them seriously because they had no libraries (let alone quality libraries), had poor tooling, poor documentation, buggy runtime, and almost nobody to compare notes with. In my experience, the largest jump in productivity is librarie…

It is true that most of the best supported languages have been around for a good ten years. But each of those languages had a time when they were only a year old. I don't deny languages take time to mature. I feel like Haxe is about two-thirds of the way towards being properly Mature. It is approaching 10 years old, yet I feel like it is only just getting started, A lot of people still haven't even heard of it.

Haxe is great but confusing for newbies. You can write anything to run on anything but with what libraries; tons of halfbaked thing around. The tutorials are per target which make it seem you can use the same language but have to write different code per platform. I like Haxe and tried it a number of times, but unless coming from Flash/AS it feels underdocumented and, in a lot places in the main site, quite dead. It's not but broken links, vital libraries which are unsupported etc.
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