Today I was watching a Channel 9 presentation regarding the future of C#, specifically new things coming in version 7. There were a few things that made an impact I wanted to communicate.
One big thing that came out was the intentional separation of paths between the Dot Net language capabilities. No longer are they attempting to build everything into every language. There will still be a large overlap of capabilities. But, as they said, there are some things that are VB like in nature that do not belong in C#. The same is true of C#; there are some things that make sense in the C# syntax that are forced in VB, and unlikely to be useful.
The second thing that was of interest was the intention to have a more rapid release cycle. Instead of slowing down the release of Dot Net features, it appears they will be doing more frequent releases, containing fewer new features in each. This intention prompts me to wonder how this will work with their recently stated goal to reduce the number of Dot Net versions that will continue to be supported for bugs and security. With more frequent releases, are they going to be included under the major version cycle of support, or will this simply shorten the cycle of code support?
Personally, I like the frequent release model. I worked with database engines that had an annual major release, and quarterly minor releases. You were able to get new things frequently, but not have to worry about how you may need to change your application to handle major changes every few months.
The best part of the presentation for me was demonstrations of how the move to open development, while still under Microsoft’s control, has moved Dot Net off of a “Windows Only” proposition. Dot Net Core and Rosylyn have built truly extensible frameworks. We are coming closer to the reality of, “write in a language you like, run anywhere”. We’re not there today…but we are closer than ever before.
Check out Channel 9, The Future of C# for more details.
Cheers,
Ben