I’ve been programming professionally for 10 years or so, most of that in C, with a fair amount of C++ more recently, but, up until my present job, I’ve worked entirely on video game consoles. Now I’m working on Windows, and I’d like to write a simple little tool with some buttons and pulldown menus and so forth. Various smart people say that things like that are VERY easy to do in C#. However, (a) I don’t know a thing about C#, and (b) this tool would need to use our pre-existing networking and utility code, which is in C.
So:
(1) How easy is it to learn C#, coming from a C/C++ background?
(2) How easy is it to write a tool where the interface is in C# but it calls some number of C functions, or perhaps vice versa?
Thanks
C# is easy for someone who already knows a C-like language. The syntax is similar, the object model is basically C++ with managed memory, and it has all Microsoft’s various Visual tools behind it, so yay. It has more syntax than C, but less than C++. It is allegedly easy to call into C; one of MS’s stated design goals for C# was to make writing native code easy on Windows (to differentiate it from Java and its miserable JNI, I presume). They have about a million tutorials on it on MSDN, anyway.
Can’t speak for #2 at all, but #1 - I agree. My background was C/C++ and I had no trouble picking up C# in a five-day training course. Syntax was easy. Development environment and the structure may take a little getting used to - Visual Basic experience would help a bit with that aspect.
I just went from a C/C++ background to C#, and I love it. The hardest part is learning all the stuff that C# already does that you had to do “by hand” with C/C++. There’s just assloads of functions built-in to the language, like XML and http functions.
Right now I’m working on a project whereby I need to make a .NET “wrapper” around functions in a device API that was written for C. Got it working today mostly, it wasn’t difficult. Basically, I made a managed C++ dll project in Visual Studio that contained an unmanaged class to call the C API functions, and I made a managed Class that created an instance of the unmanaged class, and called the functions of that unmanaged class. Then my C# project referenced the dll, instantiated the managed class and called its methods (which in turn called the unmanaged methods of the unmanaged class).
I think that sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. Plus, there very well might be simpler and more direct ways of doing it; I’m pretty new to C#/.NET and would not be surprised one bit if I missed an easier solution.
Also remember that if you’re using Visual Studio 2005, C++.NET is also an option (and a pretty good one). It gets all of the whiz-bang Rapid GUI and automation stuff in a language that’s only slightly different from what you’re used to (the .NET objects are garbage-collected, so many C++ construction/destruction metaphors don’t work with them), plus calls into C/C++ are basically free. It really is the best of both worlds if you’re already comfortable in C++.
The 2003 version of C++ is much less functional, and there are big changes between the two.
C# is much closer to Java than C++, but wouldn’t be hard to learn. VB.NET is also pretty close to Java, and more fun to learn. You can mock the: “Overridable MustOverride Private Sub Foobar(ByValue variablename as VariableType)…End Sub” over-the-top verbose syntax while still understanding all of the concepts. Plus VB has better (ok, “more”) Intellisense-style stuff in it: you can almost program-by-pulldown, and it will highlight syntax errors BEFORE you compile, which C# is weaker at.
I’ll echo the others - it’s very easy to program in C# if you know C/C++. The UI side is easier if you’re familiar with VB as well, but not too hard to get if you’re not.
Well, it’s really closer to Java. For example, in C# all class instances are allocated on the heap. There’s no stack-based allocation with automatic construction and destruction (thus no RAII pattern). There’s no multiple inheritance, only interfaces. Also, IIRC, class identity never changes during construction, whereas in C++ an object “grows” through every one of its base classes as the constructors are called, which makes a difference if any of the base constructors call virtual methods.
Heh, good point. “With managed memory” covers an astonishing variety of stuff. No copy constructors, no real destructors (finalizers don’t count), and of course no MI.
:eek: I never knew it did that. How appalling. Thanks.