[ruby-talk:04203] C# (Sharp) & .NET on comp.lang.python

Hi,

Although this should probably be taken with a substantial grain of salt or two,
this nevertheless had some interesting thought provoking ideas.

Neil Hodgson wrote:

> > Do you know where I can get information on Microsoft's IL? Thanks,
>
>    As yet, there is no real documentation for IL. It is mentioned in several
> reports on the current Microsoft Professional Developers Conference and in
> some of the papers associated with the conference.
>
>    A reasonably interesting document is from Bertrand Meyers + pals:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/techart/P
> C_eiffel.htm

"The aim of this project and the resulting products is to provide a full
integration between ISE Eiffel and the Microsoft .NET Framework. The
combined power of the platform and the development environment should
yield the dream environment for building the powerful Internet applications
that society expects from us today. Eiffel on the Microsoft .NET Framework
provides flexibility, productivity, and high reliability. It is impossible, in
particular, to overestimate the benefits of Design by Contract in a distributed
environment, where looking for bugs after the fact can be an excruciating and
money-wasting experience. Together with the other benefits of the Eiffel
method耀eamless development, generic programming, information hiding and
other software engineering principles, and a powerful inheritance
mechanism勇iffel on the Microsoft .NET Framework provides a best-of-breed
solution for ambitious Internet software developers."

>     """The core of the technology consists of a run time that interprets
> and/or compiles byte code (the virtual machine's internal language, also
> known as "IL") with metadata. The metadata describes each component part of
> the system, including the prototype for all its methods, fields, or events.
> """
>
>    One report at http://www.codeproject.com/ says """As all languages now
> compile to the same result, performance for all languages from C# and VB to
> Python and Eiffel will have exactly the same performance. """. I don't
> really believe this as the different capabilities of the different languages
> will lead to different performance. Hoever, as all languages will be using
> some common substrate code for features like memory management and exception
> handling, performance levels for the different languages will be closer than
> before.
>
>    The highlight of the conference output for me was this ASP code:
>
> <%@ page language="COBOL" %>
> <script runat="server">
>        OBJECT.
>        DATA DIVISION.
>        WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
>        77 FONT-SIZE PIC S9(9) COMP-5.
>        END OBJECT.
> </script>
> <% PERFORM VARYING FONT-SIZE FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL FONT-SIZE > 7 %>
> <font size="<%=FONT-SIZE%>"> Hello COBOL world! </font> <br>
> <% END-PERFORM. %>

Hmm. What's this!? Had enough sleep, so that's not the explanation. Oh-oh. Is
this the _real_ Y2K problem? :-)

--
Conrad Schneiker
(This note is unofficial and subject to improvement without notice.)