-
C# Programming Language Overview A History of C, C++, and C# The C# programming language was created in the spirit of the C and C++ programming
- 上一篇：Labview矿井提升机英文文献和中文翻译
- 下一篇：电子商务网上购物英文文献和中文翻译
languages. This accounts for its powerful features and easy learning curve. The same can't be said for C and C++, but because C# was created from the ground up, Microsoft took the liberty of removing some of the more burdensome features — such as pointers. This section takes a look at the C and C++ languages, tracing their evolution into C#. 37888
The C programming language was originally designed for use on the UNIX operating system. C was used to create many UNIX applications, including a C compiler, and was eventually used to write UNIX itself. Its widespread acceptance in the academic arena expanded to include the commercial world, and software vendors such as Microsoft and Borland released C compilers for personal computers. The original Windows API was designed to work with Windows code written in C, and the latest set of the core Windows operating system APIs remain compatible with C to this day.
From a design standpoint, C lacked a detail that other languages such as Smalltalk had already embraced: the concept of an object. You'll learn more about objects in Chapter 8, " Writing Object-Oriented Code." For now, think of an object as a collection of data and a set of operations that can be performed on that data. Object-style coding could be accomplished using C, but the notion of an object was not enforced by the language. If you wanted to
structure your code to resemble an object, fine. If you didn't, fine. C really didn't care. Objects weren't an inherent part of the language, so many people didn't pay much attention to this programming paradigm.
After the notion of object-oriented development began to gain acceptance, it became clear that C needed to be refined to embrace this new way of thinking about code. C++ was created to embody this refinement. It was designed to be backwardly compatible with C (such that all C programs would also be C++ programs and could be compiled with a C++ compiler). The major addition to the C++ language was support for this new object concept. The C++
language added support for classes (which are "templates" of objects), and enabled an entire generation of C programmers to think in terms of objects and their behavior.
The C++ language is an improvement over C, but it still has some disadvantages. C and C++ can be hard to get a handle on. Unlike easy-to-use languages like Visual Basic, C and C++ are very "low level" and require you to do a lot of coding to make your application run well. You have to write your own code to handle issues such as memory management and error checking. C and C++ can result in very powerful applications, but you need to ensure that your code works well. One bug can make the entire application crash or behave unexpectedly. Because of the C++ design goal of retaining backward compatibility with C, C++ was unable to break away from the low level nature of C.
Microsoft designed C# to retain much of the syntax of C and C++. Developers who are familiar with those languages can pick up C# code and begin coding relatively quickly. The big advantage to C#, however, is that its designers chose not to make it backwardly
compatible with C and C++. While this may seem like a bad deal, it's actually good news. C# eliminates the things that makes C and C++ difficult to work with. Because all C code is also C++ code, C++ had to retain all of the original quirks and deficiencies found in C. C# is starting with a clean slate and without any compatibility requirements, so it can retain the strengths of its predecessors and discard the weaknesses that made life hard for C and C++ programmers.