Tuesday, April 03, 2007

The New C#

About a year and a half ago I blogged about LINQ (Language INtegrated Query). Anders Hejlesberg starred in a video demoing object/xml/database query functionality and some new language features that Microsoft was playing with.

It's been in the oven for quite a while so it should be just about done, and as a matter of fact it looks like C# 3.0 is scheduled to be released this year. I suggest checking out this MSDN site to read the details for yourself or watch some of the videos. Things like implicitly typed local variables, extension methods, lamda expressions, and anonymous types all seem to be inspired by the features of the so-called scripting languages like Ruby, although Microsoft goes out of their way to make sure you don't confuse the similarity in syntax with the underlying implementation (and with good reason).

In short I'm still quite impressed. I've seriously looked at C# in the past and mostly dismissed it as a Java clone. But with these new features I think it's finally coming out from under it's Java shadow and beginning to shine on its own.

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