I liked your list of potential improvements to the IDE and I have to say I agree with all of them. Case sensitivity seems to be one of those annoying things that seems to a feature of C syntax languages and operating systems and I agree with you it is a pain. You should never have two variables with same name except for case.
As for the with statement I remember having this discussion at the PDC in 2000 and seems that the developers did not seem to see a need for it.
I surprised the person who complained that you are looking at everything from a VB point of view did not complain at your mention of "edit and continue" for C#. I remember seeing a comment in MSDN chat where Eric Rudder was asked about adding "Edit and Continue" for C# and he said he did not think there was the demand for it from C# developers.
I developed in about 10 different programming languages over time, including Java, vb and C# and really want all the productivity aids that come with VB and especially "Edit and Continue".
You are definitely on the right track.
Martin Spedding
Case sensitivity is important to me, because it makes my code cleaner. It stops me (and other people) from writing
MySpecialMethod()
as
myspecialmethod()
or
MYSPECIALMETHOD()
It forces code to be uniform. I understand that not every VB programmer is this sloppy, but I've run into quite a lot of hard-to-read code because case was used inconsistantly.
(I'm speaking from when I used to be a VBScript programmer, I haven't touched VB at all.)
I don't think it's vital to the language, I just like the constraint. :)
Leave case-sensitivity alone. It will never change, nor do most C# developers want it to.
Case sensitivity leads to bugs.
"That's what I'm talking about - In VB you can write MYVARIABLE but you'll get automatically formatted text to the name of the variable, so if it was named "MyVariable" - your text will automatically turn into that casing... how easy is that? :) "
Not always. If you are typing some code and realize you have to declare a variable, you type in the statement using hte variable and then you type the declaration above it. AFAIK, the statement will not change based on another casing.
Personally I think code which relies on case sensitivity to run properly is not that good and it shows lazyness, because coming up with a new good name is not that hard but takes a little time and the shortest way out is to simpy use the same name with another casing...
(continuation)
- Automatic creation of "()" braces on method calls
This sounds like more help for VB programmers used to typing function calls without parentheses. It had never occurred to me. How much productivity are you going to save with the saving of two characters?
- With like functionality VB.NET
As pointed out in various forms to you:
using (q = Namespace.Object.Object) {
q.property1 = "a";
q.property2 = "b";
}
Admittedly, you've had to type an extra four characters, but hey, life is tough. VB and C# are different for a reason. That reason is so they are different -- it's that simple. VB.NET has underscore line continuation, a 'With' keyword, parentheses for array etc because it is Visual Basic. I believe that VB has been put together to enable speedy mock ups for a broad spectrum of applications, with an emphasis on strong visualisation and good readability for the lay coder. C-syntax to me has always been about the embodiment of abstract concepts, its concise grammar lends itself especially well to this IMO. I'd like to think I'm not a C-syntax snob, but it appears I am.
And last, but not least, I am currently involved in porting a large multitier app from VB to C#. This has been the source of countless rage fits. Again, apologies for getting a little too personal on the rant.
Subscribed.
Roy, I liked your list. I agree with all except Case Sensitivity. It should be smarter and automatically adjust like VB, but then it wouldn't be C# anymore. I like using VB primarily because the VS.NET editor seems much smarter and supportive than C# (though I have coded almost exclusively in C# for the last year.) Keep on doing what you're doing, whether its "stereotypical" or not!
Thanks for the feedback guys(especially Oisin). I've learned a lot :)