C# 0 The Complete Reference

PART I

C h a p t e r   1 :  

T h e   C r e a t i o n   o f   C #  

5

PART IPART I

compiled, and targeted for a specific CPU and a specific operating system. While it has always 

been true that programmers like to reuse their code, the ability to port a program easily from 

one environment to another took a backseat to more pressing problems. However, with the 

rise of the Internet, in which many different types of CPUs and operating systems are 

connected, the old problem of portability reemerged with a vengeance. To solve the problem 

of portability, a new language was needed, and this new language was Java.

Although the single most important aspect of Java (and the reason for its rapid acceptance) 

is its ability to create cross-platform, portable code, it is interesting to note that the original 

impetus for Java was not the Internet, but rather the need for a platform-independent 

language that could be used to create software for embedded controllers. In 1993, it became 

clear that the issues of cross-platform portability found when creating code for embedded 

controllers are also encountered when attempting to create code for the Internet. Remember: 

the Internet is a vast, distributed computing universe in which many different types of 

computers live. The same techniques that solved the portability problem on a small scale 

could be applied to the Internet on a large scale.

Java achieved portability by translating a program’s source code into an intermediate 

language called 

bytecode.

 This bytecode was then executed by the Java Virtual Machine 

(JVM). Therefore, a Java program could run in any environment for which a JVM was 

available. Also, since the JVM is relatively easy to implement, it was readily available for 

a large number of environments.

Java’s use of bytecode differed radically from both C and C++, which were nearly 

always compiled to executable machine code. Machine code is tied to a specific CPU and 

operating system. Thus, if you wanted to run a C/C++ program on a different system, it 

needed to be recompiled to machine code specifically for that environment. Therefore, to 

create a C/C++ program that would run in a variety of environments, several different 

executable versions of the program would be needed. Not only was this impractical, it was 

expensive. Java’s use of an intermediate language was an elegant, cost-effective solution. 

It is also a solution that C# would adapt for its own purposes.

As mentioned, Java is descended from C and C++. Its syntax is based on C, and its object 

model is evolved from C++. Although Java code is neither upwardly nor downwardly 

compatible with C or C++, its syntax is sufficiently similar that the large pool of existing 

C/C++ programmers could move to Java with very little effort. Furthermore, because Java 

built upon and improved an existing paradigm, Gosling, et al., were free to focus their 

attention on the new and innovative features. Just as Stroustrup did not need to “reinvent 

the wheel” when creating C++, Gosling did not need to create an entirely new language 

when developing Java. Moreover, with the creation of Java, C and C++ became an accepted 

substrata upon which to base a new computer language.