Lambda the Ultimate

Most developers, especially those with a background in C or C++, would probably agree that features like operator overloading, pointers, preprocessor directives, delegates and deterministic object cleanup make C# more expressive than Java in a number of cases. Similarly, Java developers who learn C# will be pleasantly surprised at features that are missing in Java that will seem glaring in their absence once one uses them in C#, such as boxing, enumerations and pass by reference. On the other hand the lack of checked exceptions, inner classes, cross platform portability or the fact that a class is not the smallest unit of distribution of code makes the choice of C# over Java not a clearcut case of choosing more language features without having to make any compromises.

Personally I think of C# and Java as being pretty much the same language, with some feature rearrangement here and there. I don't see much in C# that is a significant advancement. The real differences are in the underlying VM's and libraries (API's), not in the languages.
Posted to OOP by Chris Rathman on 11/19/01; 10:11:51 AM