Appendix B: A Sharp Primer: C and J

An Introduction to the Visual C# .NET and Visual J# .NET Languages

During a recent chat with my wife, Lilia, I explained how the earlier chapters in this book advocated a bilingual programming approach, using both COBOL .NET and Visual Basic .NET (VB .NET) samples to demonstrate key .NET concepts. I went on to explain to my wife that I was preparing to write an appendix that would introduce two other .NET language choices.

Later, while sort of thinking out loud, I wondered if trilingual and quadlingual were grammatically correct terms that I might use to describe a development approach that includes Visual C# .NET (C#) and Visual J# .NET (J#) as language choices together with COBOL .NET and VB .NET. While still thinking out loud, I asked myself the question (repeatedly), "So, would you call it bilingual, trilingual, and quadlingual? Quadlingual, trilingual, and bilingual? Trilingual, bilingual, and quadlingual?"

My wife (perhaps realizing that I was stuck in a mental loop) responded, "Chris, you would call it developing in multiple languages."