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Comment by Timwi

4 days ago

No mention of C#, which of all the languages I've seen makes the best distinction for what he wants: structs/“value types” = data, classes/“reference types” = objects. He briefly mentions that Java is in the process of adding that; C# has had it since version 1. Now, 15 versions later, C# has acquired all the modern features from all paradigms of programming, including type inference, record types, and an incredibly full-featured pattern matching system. Java is laughably lagging behind.

He also praises async/await as a revolutionary leap forward for programming languages, but without a mention of the language that invented/pioneered it (that's right, it's C#, in version 5).

Now, I'm not going to sit here and claim that C# is perfect for all purposes. It has made mistakes which have to live on due to backwards compatibility. The mutability of structs is, in my opinion, one such mistake. But even so, of all programming languages I've seen, C# fits this author’s ideas like hand in glove.

Edit: the scenario he describes of putting a large array or other static data structure directly into the code is also better supported by modern C# compilers. For small structures you still get the element-by-element-adding bytecode, but there's also a serialization format that can bake large objects directly into the assembly.

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Timwi

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gf000  4 days ago

I do agree that the article could be summarized as "value types vs reference types, a language should have both".

But your idea of Java is pretty dated - it has type inference, full algebraic types (records and sealed classes), pattern matching (switch expression - though many of its more advanced features are TBD/experimental yet).

And then Java has virtual threads, which C# suddenly wants to add as well, that language is definitely on the same road as C++, and this "adding every conceivable feature" is not sustainable, it will crumble under its own way. Java is much more conscious of it, which I greatly value.

  • Timwi  4 days ago

    > it has type inference, full algebraic types [...]

    For the record, I didn't say Java doesn't have those. The only thing I said it doesn't have is value types (and in another post, true generics). I'm aware that it has a couple features where C# is the one that's lagging behind, but on the whole, it's really no competition. I'm also aware that stuffing a language full of features willy-nilly is unwise and I'm curious where this will take C#.

SkiFire13  4 days ago

> had it since version 1. Now, 15 versions later, C# has acquired all the modern features from all paradigms of programming, including [...] an incredibly full-featured pattern matching system. Java is laughably lagging behind.

Did C# finally implement some kind of discriminated unions with exhaustive pattern matching? Last time I checked not even plain `enum`s supported exhaustive pattern matching. For comparison, even Java supports discriminated unions in the shape of sealed classes/interfaces with exhaustive pattern matching since Java 21