Chapter 3: The .NET L anguages

Overview

In the previous two chapters, you have seen that .NET is not just a minor product release “ ASP.NET is not just ASP 4.0, and Visual Studio .NET is not just another upgrade. As for the Common Language Runtime ( CLR ), well, that's completely new. It's a natural reaction to wonder about the changes, ask why there are new languages, why the existing ones are so different, and to question Microsoft's motives.

The Java issue has raged for a long time now; a controversy that is often mindlessly banal. Claims that 'C# is just a copy of Java' are made, often by people who apparently don't realize that each programming language builds on the ones that were developed earlier. That's what developers do “ they continue to improve products, and there's no reason why languages should be treated any differently to applications. .NET 1.1 now ships with J# .NET , a version of Java.

Microsoft looked at the way their languages were being used and asked several questions:

• Do our languages provide developers with what they need.

• How can we improve the languages.

• How can we leverage the existing skills of developers.

• How can we enable applications to be more robust and more scalable.

• How can we provide a better development environment.

• How can the application architecture be improved.

The answers to these questions aren't necessarily compatible with each other, and with the .NET Framework Microsoft has concentrated on providing the best possible platform for future development. In some areas, this has come at the expense of compatibility with existing technologies, and risks alienating some die-hard developers. However, when weighing up the problems, the benefits easily compensate for the losses.

In the previous chapter we discussed the CLR and the benefits it brings , such as common functionality, namespaces, a common type system, versioning, and so on. In this chapter, we'll concentrate on the languages themselves , rather than any ASP.NET-specific details. In particular, this chapter will look at:

• The new features in Visual Basic .NET.

• The new language of C#.

• Other available languages.

• How the CLR affects our use of languages.

• Examples of common tasks , in VB .NET and C#, to ease conversion and migration.