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Note

As you will see in Chapter 13, C# 2008 has adopted a number of constructs traditionally found in various

functional languages (e.g., LISP or Haskell). Furthermore, with the advent of LINQ (see Chapters 14 and 24), C#

supports a number of programming constructs that make it quite unique in the programming landscape. Neverthe-

less, the crux of C# is indeed influenced by C-based languages.

Due to the fact that C# is a hybrid of numerous languages, the result is a product that is as syn-

tactically clean—if not cleaner—than Java, is about as simple as VB6, and provides just about as

much power and flexibility as C++ (without the associated ugly bits). Here is a partial list of core C#

features that are found in all versions of the language:

• No pointers required! C# programs typically have no need for direct pointer manipulation

(although you are free to drop down to that level if absolutely necessary).

• Automatic memory management through garbage collection. Given this, C# does not sup-

port a delete keyword.

• Formal syntactic constructs for classes, interfaces, structures, enumerations, and delegates.

• The C++-like ability to overload operators for a custom type, without the complexity (e.g.,

making sure to “return *this to allow chaining” is not your problem).

• Support for attribute-based programming. This brand of development allows you to anno-

tate types and their members to further qualify their behavior. 

With the release of .NET 2.0 (circa 2005), the C# programming language was updated to sup-

port numerous new bells and whistles, most notably the following:

• The ability to build generic types and generic members. Using generics, you are able to build

very efficient and type-safe code that defines numerous “placeholders” specified at the time

you interact with the generic item.

• Support for anonymous methods, which allow you to supply an inline function anywhere a

delegate type is required.

• Numerous simplifications to the delegate/event model, including covariance, contravari-

ance, and method group conversion.

• The ability to define a single type across multiple code files (or if necessary, as an in-memory

representation) using the partial keyword.

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