Sams Teach Yourself C in 21 Days

Microsoft led by Anders Hejlsberg. Interestingly, Hejlsberg is a Microsoft Distinguished

Engineer who has created other products and languages, including Borland Turbo C++

and Borland Delphi. With C#, the focus was on taking what was right about existing lan-

guages and adding improvements to make something better.

766 Bonus Day 7

The C# ECMA standards will be known as ECMA-334.

Note

C# is a powerful and flexible programming language. Like all programming languages, it

can be used to create a variety of applications. Your potential with C# is limited only by

your imagination. The language does not place constraints on what you can do. C# has

already been used for projects as diverse as dynamic Web sites, development tools, and

even compilers.

Like C++ and Java, C# was created as an object-oriented programming (OOP) language.

Other programming languages include object-oriented features, but very few are fully

object-oriented. Even more than being object-oriented, C# was created with the idea of

creating components and working on the Web. Later in today’s lesson you will under-

stand how C# compares to some of these other programming languages. You’ll also learn

what types of applications can be created.

Why C#? ............................................................................................................

Many people believed that there was no need for a new programming language. Java,

C++, Perl, Microsoft Visual Basic, and other existing languages were believed to offer all

the functionality needed.

Like Java, C# is a language derived from C and C++, but it was created from the ground

up. Microsoft started with what worked in C and C++ and included new features that

would make these languages easier to use. Many of these features are very similar to

what can be found in Java. Ultimately, Microsoft had a number of objectives when build-

ing the language. These objectives can be summarized in the claims made about C#:

• C# is simple.


• C# is modern.


• C# is object-oriented.
  In addition to these reasons, there are others for using C#:


• C# is powerful and flexible.


• C# is a language of few words.

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