I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
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Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#2I think it's valuable to read interviews with Anders Hejlsberg [0] about the design process for both .NET and C#. They are old but clearly communicate why certain decisions have been made (spoilers: compatibility).
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#3I'm surprised the creator of RavenDB took this long to come around on composition vs inheritance. Good on him for admitting his transgressions, however.
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#4If I attempt to generalize it, I think most of C#'s differences in language design that have opposites in Java are superior. Examples include:
+ not virtual by default (so base classes can be changed more easily without breaking/recompiling downstream clients that the base class writer doesn't know about; specifying something as "virtual" should be a deliberate conscious decision by the class author)
+ value types (for speed, because J Gosling's idea that "_everything_ is an object is 'simpler' for programmers" has a cost -- the boxing & unboxing, and inefficient cache-unfriendly pointer-chasing containers)
+ no checked exceptions (checked exceptions have benefits in theory but real-world practice shows that it forces programmers to copy-paste mindless boilerplate to satisfy the checked-constraint)
+ unsigned types (very handy for P/Invoke API boundaries because legacy Win32 has unsigned params everywhere; yes, yes, Gosling said that unsigned types are confusing and dangerous but nevertheless, they are still very useful)
+ many other examples
This doesn't mean that Anders Hejlsberg's C# language team was smarter than J Gosling's Java team. They simply had 7 years to observe how Java programmers (mis)used the language and therefore, could correct some design mistakes.
Nevertheless, C# still made some dubious decisions such as renaming "finalizers" to "destructors". Java had the better name and C# should have kept the original terminology.
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#5I'm surprised the creator of RavenDB took this long to come around on composition vs inheritance. Good on him for admitting his transgressions, however.
> Another issue is that my approach to software design has significantly changed. Where I would
previously do a lot of inheritance and explicit design patterns, I’m far more motivated toward
using composition, instead.
I picked up on this too; object-oriented design patterns have lost a lot of mindshare over the last ten to fifteen years. There was a time when it seemed like design patterns were taking over the world. We're still living with some of the monstrosities spawned during that era. I wonder if design patterns can ever be rehabilitated.
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#6If I attempt to generalize it, I think most of C#'s differences in language design that have opposites in Java are superior. Examples include: + not virtual by default (so base classes can be changed more easily without breaking/recompiling downstream clients that the base class writer doesn't know about; specifying something as "virtual" should be a deliberate conscious decision by the class author) + value types (f…
What do you think of partial classes and methods in term of code quality?
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#7> However, given that I’m working on a database engine now, not on business software, I can see a whole different world of constraints.
This might be my own confirmation bias, but this is my takeaway: point of view and the constraints that you see or believe are there are the main determinant of choices, and not whether some particular pattern or feature of a language is intrinsically good.
The older I get and the more code I write, the more I find this to be true. I change my own mind about things I used to argue fiercely over and things I thought were tautologically true.
I think (hope) this is making me more open minded as I go, more willing to listen to opposing points of view, and more able to ask questions about what someone else's constraints are rather than debating about the results. But, who knows, I might be wrong.
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#8If I attempt to generalize it, I think most of C#'s differences in language design that have opposites in Java are superior. Examples include: + not virtual by default (so base classes can be changed more easily without breaking/recompiling downstream clients that the base class writer doesn't know about; specifying something as "virtual" should be a deliberate conscious decision by the class author) + value types (f…
What do you think of partial classes and methods in term of code quality?
I've always thought of "partial classes" as a language feature motivated by code generators not stomping on programmers' manually entered code. E.g. Winforms generates some declarations in one partial class while the programmer codes UI handlers in the other partial class.
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#9The bigger question is why the hell a post like this makes it on top of hacker news? This was by far the most pointless read ever.
On top of that arguing that non-virtual by default is worse than virtual by default is completely superfluous. Just add the damn keyword everywhere and you have virtual everywhere. Same for final.
But Java has everything non-final and virtual by default, which sucks badass because both require great care when implementing the method.
Extending code that was not designed to be extended is very common in Java, because you can. Adding final can easily be forgotten. Removing final, which is required in C#, will only be done IF you intended to make that method extendable, same for virtual.
Yes a great gain. Now I need to argue for each final I add to Java classes and methods, because you know, it seems wasteful to add it, while in fact it is crucial, since maybe just 1% of any code I write was meant to be replaceable by a third-party. Mostly, you want to use other mechanism for extension, like decoration & composition.
If it took ten years to learn that falsehood (non-virtual is worse than virtual by default), then we talk about one hell of a regression huh.
Re: I was wrong, reflecting on the .NET design choices
#10If I attempt to generalize it, I think most of C#'s differences in language design that have opposites in Java are superior. Examples include: + not virtual by default (so base classes can be changed more easily without breaking/recompiling downstream clients that the base class writer doesn't know about; specifying something as "virtual" should be a deliberate conscious decision by the class author) + value types (f…
What do you think of partial classes and methods in term of code quality?
Not the OP but here are my 2 cents: partial classes should only be used when you have a mix of generated and hand written code. Any other usage should be forbidden. It requires some education but it is useful for this usecase.