C# or C++?

Crassus · Post by **Crassus** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:40 pm

Given the choice, for new development projects do people go for C#, or maybe something totally different?

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:43 pm

As always you should choose your tools according to the task at hand, but if you want a general answer I would personally go for C# for most projects if the choice is C# or C++.

What type of project are you thinking about?

freddyG · Post by **freddyG** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:55 pm

Agreed, starting a new project is definitely easier in C#. Development will be a lot quicker and bug fixing is a lot easier! I may be biased as I use C# a lot and haven't used C++ in a long time, but i'd never go back...

FDAXHunter · Post by **FDAXHunter** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:27 am

C#, no question about it.

I've spent alot of time benchmarking C++ vs. C# in a gazillion different ways and, to sum it up in a nutshell, there really isn't any advantage C++ has in the enterprise. C# beats C++ hands down.

Enterprise programming is about productivity, maintainability, stability and ease of use. There's no way a good C++ programmer can beat a good C# programmer in the above criteria.

People used to think the advantage of C++ was speed and that if they used c++ they were really clever and "hardcore".

But with the advent of 2.0 the compiler has made a huge leap. As a matter of fact, we created several benchmarks where compiler optimized C# beat compiler optimized C++ speed wise (processor dependent). (And it makes sense why this should actually be so).

Anyway, so you got 3 people telling you that C# is the way to go. Don't go an pull a shavinOccam now.

Crassus · Post by **Crassus** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 4:15 pm

yeah that's what I thought. thanks for the confirmation.

the project concerns various tools, the first being a simple/pseudo monte carlo. difficult to do away with past lives.

athletico · Post by **athletico** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 5:40 pm

I agree with FDAX and I've historically been a pretty hardcore C++ guy.

C# 1.0, my reaction: "Eh. Just a Java with CLR as the VM."

C# 2.0: "Generics ... now this is getting interesting"

C# 3.0: "Linq, the killer app" LINQ Project

FDAXHunter · Post by **FDAXHunter** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 5:53 pm

Athletico,

Did you know that from C# 2.0 onwards you should use [b]foreach[/b] instead of [b]for[/b]? In 1.1 it was much slower and everyone avoided it like the plague. Now, you can use foreach without any performance impact whatsoever.

Took me a while to get used to and I still slip into the old for(;;) idiom on occasion, just so ingrained. Expressionless

A little publicised fact but it's quite handy. Much cleaner (and less) code. More productivity.

athletico · Post by **athletico** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 6:14 pm

tnx for the pointer - i didn't know that. i didn't use C# until 2.0 so i didn't suffer that hit in 1.1, just lucky.

i also like the foreach idiom stylistically very much, so the fact that there's no performance penalty is a bonus.

AVt · Post by **AVt** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:03 pm

interesting killer: if i go that link, allow the demanded script but refuse to

allow activeX it sends by PC to nirvana - and that in a very sound way, not

even a reboot works, i have to switch it off ... very nice for a web application!

Patrik · Post by **Patrik** » Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:13 pm

Re [b]foreach:[/b] cool. I don't really do C# at the moment, but that's good new anyways. I've loved the ForEach feature in every language I've used that has it.

Sorry for being a bit OT, but for the active C# users: Do you feel generics in 2.0 has rocked your world or not? I stepped off the wagon at 1.1 so have no real experience.