I think C# is a great language. Perhaps Java is too, but I cannot get past the ugly and slow implementations of it.

No it's not...

Properties are a cleaner equivalent of getters and setters. You can do more than just "return x;" and "x = value;" in the properties.

Here's a why: you can add logic inside properties methods, for stuff that needs to be done before or after the new "set".

Example, let's say that changing the position of a sprite is a very expensive method in term of computation, you can just add this to the setter:

public Point Position
{
  get { return position; }
  set
  {
    if (position != value)
    {
      position = value;
    }
  }
}

And there you have nice optimization that users don't need to care about.

Of course you can add all sort of logic, like move other sub-sprites once one's position is changed, etc.

And yes, you can do that with Java, but in C# it looks so much cleaner. I really like properties.

Well yeah, of course you can. Why have a for loop, when you can do the same with a while? The syntax for "for" loops is nicer, just as the syntax for properties is nicer.

Java is a great language, but I still prefer C# over it. C/C++ can be too low level, Java can be too high level, and C# is just about right.

I've never used a MS keyboard, but I do have a MS wireless laser mouse. The range on it isn't the best, but other than that it works great and goes months on one set of AA batteries. I also have a MS wireless router here. MS since discontinued network hardware... the router function of it blows, but it has a dedicated AP mode, and it works awesome in that mode, I can easily push 20-30mbit through it over wifi. I even think it can run some Linux firmware like ddwrt as opposed to the Windows CE or whatever this one runs.

Saner licensing? What's not sane about MS's licensing?

I hate Java because of dumb little differences like having to use .equals() instead of == on strings/objects, etc. C# is more similar to C++ and seems more sane to me. Also, it feels like it runs a hell of a lot faster than Java.

I haven't used Eclipse much, but Visual Studio is about the best IDE I've used so far.

That used to be why I avoided .NET. But as you said, most people have it. Windows Vista comes with it out of the box, for example. That is the reason I am avoiding .NET 3.0 at the moment, at least until it's adopted some more and works with mono better.

I HATE that in Java. For example, creating a new mask. I know it's not going to throw an exception, yet I have to create the mask in a method someplace so I can wrap it in try/catch for exceptions that are never going to happen. Uglifies the code, IMO.

Not sure what the alternatives are... just different languages? Managed C++, VB.NET, C#, and J# all run on the .NET framework, and IIRC it's not too hard to create more.

I think foo.bar = 3; looks cleaner and more to the point than foo.setBar(3). Same with foo.baz versus foo.getBaz(). Also, it's much quicker to type.

Windows is used far more in the enterprise world, so what does that tell you?
Just because its USED more doesn't mean its better.. actually that doesn't mean anything but that it's used more.

I'm not sure how properties work in C#, but if they did like Borland did in BCB you could do this:

MyObject->SomeIntegerProperty++;

Java would be like this?

MyObject->SetSomeIntegerProperty(MyObject->GetSomeIntegerProperty()+1);

Ofcourse, You could just provide some function to increment SomeIntegerProperty, but thats just more code

Either that Java needs more maintenance or that it's been around longer than C# so it's use stems from those days.

I don't see where it's that bloated, the interface is fairly simple. What strange files are you talking about? The manifest and other linker files? They are mainly for faster compiles and debugging, in most cases you won't need to distribute anything more than the exe file.

It's F5.

Holy shit! How come that wasn't obvious! Thanks to both of you!

What kinda attitude is that to have?