Comment by CoolGuySteve | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CoolGuySteve | Hacker News Reader

Easily C# and Java, I don't think the virtual machine adds anything other than another abstraction layer to get in the way. Just because code is native doesn't mean you can't have all sorts of built in bounds checking to ensure safety, but when you're in a VM, taking off the training wheels when you need to actually make shit fast is such a pain.

I especially don't understand the point of a VM like the CLR that only runs on one platform. It's fucking retarded.

On top of that, after having worked in an "enterprise C#" project for an unfortunate year, the kind of person who thinks C# is a really neat idea just doesn't get along with my style of programming.

I had to reiterate constantly "Do the simplest thing that will work". And they would get pissed at me whenever I inserted something at the wrong layer of their pointless abstraction hierarchy. Delegates, XML, and design patterns abstracting ONE thing where everywhere. It was fucking horrible and it took the team forever to get anything done.

I work in C# quite a few days a week, and I share your pair regarding the simplest thing. We have a couple of astronaut architects on the team (both of whom are actually good programmers, but they tend to get starry-eyed about MS frameworks and patterns), and I have trouble understanding why even a relatively "simple" web application requires nearly 30 Visual Studio projects.

Personally, I don't mind C# much (I do work at an MS-centric shop), but some of the baggage that comes along with the .NET framework can get bothersome.

How much of your rant has to with the actual language C# as opposed to the VM, other people, XML and patterns?

Good point, the language felt like Visual Basic wrapped in Java's syntax, or maybe a reaction to Java with subtle improvements. There were some nifty things baked in like events and lambdas, but for the most part it didn't feel like I was exploring any fundamentally new constructs or gaining much in the way of expressiveness over C++ with boost. The whole language just feels milquetoast.

It was also difficult to get stuff across the managed/unmanaged boundary without a lot of verbosity and overhead, so optimization was unduly difficult.

But really, it's not the language I hate, the language is mediocre, its the ecosystem around it that's terrible.

I have had the same experience with C++. But it is not the language’s fault. It is people who use it and call themselves “architects” who know shitload of “patterns” and “good practices”, and make all these unnecessary abstractions and distractions.

Sounds like your complaint is against mediocre programmers and enterpriseyness, not C# (which in my opinion is a technically superior language to Java). I use it all the time for simple one-off tasks and while it can be a bit verbose it's never really been a hindrance.

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