On 09-Aug-2000, Brent Fulgham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> <Prepare for rant>
> Hopefully that won't be the case. However, I feel uncomfortable with
> the whole .NET/C# situation. Like clockwork, MS releases yet another
> new product that they claim will change the world. Meanwhile, there is
> no C# implementation available, and the entire .NET framework as
> described in their various white papers seems so large and complex
> that probably only Microsoft will be capable of producing a working
> implementation in any reasonable amount of time.
You can download it here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/#sdk
There is a C# compiler and runtime environment in the SDK.
They used to say that only proprietary companies could possibly write
something so large and complex as an operating system. It could never
be done, for example, by a bunch of volunteers...
> Microsoft indicates that C# will not support "genericity", through
> even anything as crude as C++'s templates, so it is unlikely that
> they will seek to support functional programming languages in the
> short term. Perhaps this limitation is part of the impetus for the
> Mondrian variant.
They did add a tailcall instruction largely at the behest of certain
functional language researchers at MSR Cambridge.
They have developed a prototype C# implementation (and hence .NET
runtime) with generics too.
> When Microsoft decides to stop playing games, and works with the
> rest of the developer community to build on existing standards for
> their products I will start to pay attention. Until then, I will
> not waste one minute of time working to support any of their
> nefarious new products whose true aim is to prevent alternative
> platforms from gaining widespread acceptance and use.
Microsoft spent around $2M funding a bunch of groups working on research
and industrial programming languages to give feedback on their work.
(Haskell, Mercury, ML, Scheme, Oberon, Eiffel, Python, Oz, etc...)
While they acknowledged from the start that getting any changes
(apart from tailcall) into version 1 was pretty unlikely, they have
been listening, taking notes, and even now the C# folks are getting
excited about the idea of putting generics into the language.
I understand your sentiment. Those of use working on the .NET stuff
with Microsoft are also uncomfortable about the situation. However
I'm sure that everyone involved is doing what they think is the best
thing overall. Don't forget that many groups developed a .NET and a JVM
backend at the same time using Microsoft's money!
--
Tyson Dowd #
# Surreal humour isn't everyone's cup of fur.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] #
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~trd #
