Datasheet

Part I: Design Strategies

Anonymous methods make it possible to create applications that run faster and require less code as

well. An anonymous method is literally a method that has no name. The method appears in-line in place

of the usual method reference. Using anonymous methods can also make it easier to debug the code

because the code appears in-line where the developer can easily see it during a debugging session.

In some cases, you want to place an interface deﬁ nition in multiple ﬁ les. Unlike other .NET languages,

C# lets you use the

partial keyword with:

class ❑

struct ❑

interface ❑

Method names ❑

Sometimes you want to make class code available without requiring the developer to create an instance

of the class. C# supports a static class for this purpose. For example, a math class may not have any

properties or state information to maintain, so a static class works just ﬁ ne. In this case, all members

of the class are also static, which means you can access them directly. (A Visual Basic module is a close

cousin of this feature.)

You’ll also ﬁ nd a few coding niceties in C#. For example, C# uses the

= operator for assignment and the

== operator for comparison. Using different symbols for each purpose makes their use clearer in your

code and helps avoid potential misinterpretations.

Exploding Developer Mind Share

At one time, most developers acknowledged that Visual Basic held a surprising lead in languages that

most developers would know. However, C# seems to be gathering an increasing level of developer mind

share and has possibly overtaken Visual Basic as the modern favorite. According to a Visual Studio maga-

zine survey (

http://visualstudiomagazine.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2333),

41 percent of the developers polled now use C#, contrasted to 34 percent for Visual Basic. Of course, this

is only one survey, but other hints abound. For example, Microsoft often makes examples available for

new technologies in C#, rather than Visual Basic as it did in the past.

For the purposes of this book, it doesn’t matter whether C# or Visual Basic is the new developer mind-

share king. What does matter is that using C# means you can ﬁ nd the developers you need for a project

with greater ease when using either C# or Visual Basic than when using other languages. In short, using

C# provides a big advantage in locating the speciﬁ c skills your project requires. Given that many of the

new C# developers on the market are converts from Visual Basic, you may very well ﬁ nd that the C#

developer you hire to help with a project also has Visual Basic knowledge, giving you essentially two

developers for the price of one.

Understanding the Deﬁ ciencies

Every programming language has a deﬁ ciency or two. The very act of addressing one need necessarily

means that the language isn’t addressing another requirement. C# tends to provide lower level func-

tionality than Visual Basic, but it isn’t quite as low level as C++. Consequently, C# tends to cover the

middle ground of programming well, but you may ﬁ nd areas where you really need another language

to get the desired result. The following sections describe some C# deﬁ ciencies you should consider

when you begin developing your language environment.

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