What's your favourite part of C#?

Question

What's the feature you love the most in C#?

Does it come from the new .NET 3.5 or is it just from the original C#?

It can be as simple as the recommendation for camelCase and PascalCase, or as advanced as anonymous methods. What makes you like the C# language?

Answer 1

One thing I really like is it can be used in a lot of ways. I can write windows forms applications, WPF applications, console apps, web apps, XNA apps, etc.

Answer 2

The way it all hangs together. If you look at all the changes in C# 3 (with the possible exception of how extension methods are discovered) it still stays true to the original roots, while giving massive amounts of functionality.

Also the way query expressions are compiled as a sort of "pre-main-compilation step" (which means their impact is pretty much solely within a single section of the spec) is really, really neat.

Basically C# has been thought through extremely carefully, and it shows.

Answer 3

LINQ. LINQ to XML, LINQ to SQL, and LINQ to Objects all provide immense value.

I was initially skeptical of the LINQ to SQL functionality, but even that ended up pretty well. I tend to use LINQPad in place of SQL Management Studio. LINQ to XML also trivializes one of the most common tasks in enterprise application development.

Answer 4

Irritating C# diehards by pronouncing it "see pound." So many more puns become available...

heh heh heh... still cracks me up...

Answer 5

It's simplicity for one, it's a powerful language yet so simple, I like the fact that they are putting functional language aspects into also, I don't know how far C# will go but I believe it's going to be one of the languages used religiously like C++ is used today.

1. Simplicity
2. Functional properties
3. Power and extent of the .NET library at it's disposal
4. Beautiful elegant Syntax
5. Easy to teach, easy to learn, easy to enjoy.

Answer 6

Generics. (I know they're not unique to C# but coming from Delphi, Generics are awesome).

Answer 7

The framework. As good of a language as C# is, it is really propelled forward by the supporting libraries.

Answer 8

Delegates!

Answer 9

Reflection and metadata.

Answer 10

I like very much the new C# 3.0 features, like the automatic properties and the object initializers, much less typing!

public class Person 
{    
   public string FirstName  { get; set; }
   public string LastName  { get; set; }
} 

Person p = new Person()
{
    FirstName = "John",
    LastName = "Smith",
};

I also love Lambda Expressions:

(y,z) => return y * z;

Answer 11

I liked C# ever since the first time I started intensively working with it (that would be version 1.1) because:

• it was pure OO language;
• pretty nice syntax

But I started loving it only when I learned how to use yield statement and create anonymous methods (C# 2.0). I started truly adoring it when I wrote my first extension methods and classes that didn't require me to define to private fields and totally repetitive getters/setters (as CMS has illustrated above).

Now I see C# as a big brother to Ruby, a language I love for its simplicity and expressive power.

.NET Framework Class Library is certainly good, but it doesn't affect my love for C# as a language much.

Answer 12

developers, developers, developers, developers!

Oh, and properties. They're kinda cool, too.

Answer 13

I like the # part :)

Answer 14

Nice familiar syntax, but with the convenience and power of the .NET framework behind it. Oh, curly brace, how do I love thee, let me count the ways.... :)

Answer 15

The syntax. Its similarity to Java and other C-style languages makes it very easy to pick up, as nearly every programmer has been exposed to it at some point. Also, I have been continually amazed at how extensible it is -- they've added generics, functional programming, Linq and other syntactic suger without compromising the integrity of the original design.

The addition of similar features, particularly inline initialization, has felt very cumbersome in VB.Net, as was one of the reasons I switched.

Answer 16

System.Text.RegularExpressions

Answer 17

2 things, both compiler tricks:

• iterator blocks - the compiler does such a good job of making this easy (remember the C# 1.2 way of writing an iterator? shudder...)
• captured variables - in both anonymous methods and lambdas. Very elegant when you look at how it works under the bonnet.

Answer 18

The extensions methods that come with Linq. They shorten my code quite a bit.

Answer 19

I like it's C style syntax. This makes it much easier to glance at the code and understand it than more "wordy" languages like VB.

Answer 20

Someone already said "the framework" but I would highlight two "sub frameworks" in particular: ADO.NET and ASP.NET. The difference in database and web programming before and after having those framework bits is like night and day. Rails has its merits along these lines, but between ASP.NET MVC, ADO.NET Entity Framework, and Linq, the clear advantage is with the .NET web framework.

Answer 21

I don't know why, but I like yield return

Answer 22

automatic properties, foreach loops, generics!

Answer 23

I love LINQ. I'm forgetting how to write SQL joins and I'm a happier person for it.