C.7 Language interoperability issues

Unlike Java's single language platform, C# is just one of the many languages targeted at the .NET platform. There is a possibility that your C# modules will need to interoperate with modules written in other .NET languages. Hence, you should be careful to avoid using keywords in other major .NET languages ^[5] as identifiers ( especially public class members which are visible to other .NET modules).

^[5] Since anyone can write a new .NET language and compiler with selected keywords, it is impossible to ensure totally that your identifiers will not clash with any new .NET languages that are yet to be released. It is probably wise to take note of the keywords in VB .NET and J# since these are the other two .NET languages which will be used widely.

Since C# is case sensitive, it is also possible for a class to expose more than one public member of the same name but with different capitalization. ^[6] The situation may be disastrous if VB .NET codes are trying to access these identically named public members, since VB .NET is not a case sensitive language.

^[6] Doing something like this that may lead to confusion is always bad programming practice, regardless of whether your module is to interoperate with other modules or not.

J# keywords are similar to Java keywords.

Table C.4 lists all the VB .NET keywords.

Table C.4. VB .NET keywords

Alias	Ansi	As	Assembly
Auto	ByRef	ByVal	Case
Default	DirectCast	Each	Else
ElseIf	End	Error	Explicit
False	For	Friend	Handles
In	Is	Lib	Loop
Me	Module	MustInherit	MustOverride
MyBase	MyClass	New	Next
Nothing	notInheritable	NotOverridable	Off
On	Option	Optional	Overloads
Overridable	Overrides	ParamArray	Preserve
Private	Protected	Public	ReadOnly
Resume	Shadows	Shared	Static
Step	Then	To	True
TypeOf	Unicode	Until	When
While	WithEvents	WriteOnly