3.7 C# (Pronounced See Sharp )

Anders Hejlsberg, the creator of Borland s Delphi development language, was given the task by Microsoft to come up with a brand new development language from scratch. For many software engineers this is the chance of a lifetime to do away with all of those irritating problems that other languages have and to create something completely revolutionary. The goal was to bridge the gap between the innate power of C++ and the relative ease of use of Visual Basic.

In June 2000 Microsoft announced C#.

Since C# has been written to the CLS, it can use all of the IDE features available to other .NET languages, such as Visual Basic. This has a distinct advantage in that only one IDE needs to be learned.

In an effort to gain widespread acceptance for C#, the language was submitted to the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) for ratification as an open standard. Thus, Microsoft has not only created a brand new, modern development language from scratch, but it has released intellectual property out into the public domain.

C# is gaining a lot of mind share with professional developers, and there are moves afoot to ensure that it remains ahead of the game in terms of innovations. A number of traditional Visual Basic developers are now moving directly to C# rather than upgrading to Visual Basic.NET, and the once popular Visual Basic product appears to be succumbing to the more modern C#.