I liked your list of potential improvements to the IDE
and I have to say I agree with all of them. Case
sensitivity seems to be one of those annoying things
that seems to a feature of C syntax languages and
operating systems and I agree with you it is a pain. You
should never have two variables with same name except
for case.
As for the with statement I remember having this
discussion at the PDC in 2000 and seems that the
developers did not seem to see a need for it.
I surprised the person who complained that you are
looking at everything from a VB point of view did not
complain at your mention of "edit and
continue" for C#. I remember seeing a comment
in MSDN chat where Eric Rudder was asked about adding
"Edit and Continue" for C# and he said
he did not think there was the demand for it from C#
developers.
I developed in about 10 different programming languages
over time, including Java, vb and C# and really want all
the productivity aids that come with VB and especially
"Edit and Continue".
You are definitely on the right track.
Martin Spedding
Case sensitivity is important to me, because it makes my
code cleaner. It stops me (and other people) from
writing
MySpecialMethod()
as
myspecialmethod()
or
MYSPECIALMETHOD()
It forces code to be uniform. I understand that not
every VB programmer is this sloppy, but I've run into
quite a lot of hard-to-read code because case was used
inconsistantly.
(I'm speaking from when I used to be a VBScript
programmer, I haven't touched VB at all.)
I don't think it's vital to the language, I just like
the constraint. :)
Leave case-sensitivity alone. It will never change, nor
do most C# developers want it to.
Case sensitivity leads to bugs.
"That's what I'm talking about - In VB you can
write MYVARIABLE but you'll get automatically formatted
text to the name of the variable, so if it was named
"MyVariable" - your text will
automatically turn into that casing... how easy is that?
:) "
Not always. If you are typing some code and realize you
have to declare a variable, you type in the statement
using hte variable and then you type the declaration
above it. AFAIK, the statement will not change based on
another casing.
Personally I think code which relies on case sensitivity
to run properly is not that good and it shows lazyness,
because coming up with a new good name is not that hard
but takes a little time and the shortest way out is to
simpy use the same name with another casing...
(continuation)
- Automatic creation of "()" braces on
method calls
This sounds like more help for VB programmers used to
typing function calls without parentheses. It had never
occurred to me. How much productivity are you going to
save with the saving of two characters?
- With like functionality VB.NET
As pointed out in various forms to you:
using (q = Namespace.Object.Object) {
q.property1 = "a";
q.property2 = "b";
}
Admittedly, you've had to type an extra four characters,
but hey, life is tough. VB and C# are different for a
reason. That reason is so they are different -- it's
that simple. VB.NET has underscore line continuation, a
'With' keyword, parentheses for array etc because it is
Visual Basic. I believe that VB has been put together to
enable speedy mock ups for a broad spectrum of
applications, with an emphasis on strong visualisation
and good readability for the lay coder. C-syntax to me
has always been about the embodiment of abstract
concepts, its concise grammar lends itself especially
well to this IMO. I'd like to think I'm not a C-syntax
snob, but it appears I am.
And last, but not least, I am currently involved in
porting a large multitier app from VB to C#. This has
been the source of countless rage fits. Again, apologies
for getting a little too personal on the rant.
Subscribed.
Roy, I liked your list. I agree with all except Case
Sensitivity. It should be smarter and automatically
adjust like VB, but then it wouldn't be C# anymore. I
like using VB primarily because the VS.NET editor seems
much smarter and supportive than C# (though I have coded
almost exclusively in C# for the last year.) Keep on
doing what you're doing, whether its
"stereotypical" or not!
Thanks for the feedback guys(especially Oisin). I've
learned a lot :)