3.7 C (Pronounced See Sharp )

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3.7 C# (Pronounced 'See Sharp')

Anders Hejlsberg, the creator of Borland's Delphi development language, was given the task by Microsoft to come up with a brand new development language from scratch. For many software engineers this is the chance of a lifetime-to do away with all of those irritating problems that other languages have and to create something completely revolutionary. The goal was to bridge the gap between the innate power of C++ and the relative ease of use of Visual Basic.

In June 2000 Microsoft announced C#.

Since C# has been written to the CLS, it can use all of the IDE features available to other .NET languages, such as Visual Basic. This has a distinct advantage in that only one IDE needs to be learned.

In an effort to gain widespread acceptance for C#, the language was submitted to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for ratification as an open standard. Thus, Microsoft has not only created a brand new, modern development language from scratch, but it has released intellectual property out into the public domain.

C# is gaining a lot of mind share with professional developers, and there are moves afoot to ensure that it remains ahead of the game in terms of innovations. A number of traditional Visual Basic developers are now moving directly to C# rather than upgrading to Visual Basic.NET, and the once popular Visual Basic product appears to be succumbing to the more modern C#.

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