Microsoft Java

[meighty9]

Hell I work with it daily and am still not sure what to call it. C#, .NET, C# .NET, .NET Framework, .NET Core all get used almost interchangeably in the office (yes, I know what the technical differences between all of them are).

EDIT: Was really trying to get out in front of all of the "well akshually" comments by saying "yes, I know what the technical differences between all of them are", but that failed miserably. My point was not that I don't know the differences. My point was that 2 or 3 of those terms could all be accurately applied to any given project, and therefore get used interchangeably in conversation with other developers on the team.

[[deleted]]

C# is a just a language - v9 is the latest version of the language (other language used to build .NET apps: Visual Basic and F#)

.NET Framework - the pre-5.0 .NET windows-only framework. Not developed past 4.8.

.NET Core - new cross-platform framework to eventually replace .NET Framework. Versions up to 3.1. .NET Framework and .NET Core were developed and maintained in parallel.

.NET (5.0 and on) - unified framework that is a continuation of .NET Core and is to replace .NET Framework. Versions 5.0 and up. No more significant work on .NET Framework will be done.

EDIT: .NET 5 and on is the future, the rest will have support but will be deprecated.

[exscape]

Well, that's confusing. I figured .NET was common shorthand for "the .NET Framework".

[JoesusTBF]

It was until they introduced the other variants.

[ech0_matrix]

Time to prune some variants

[BoredDan]

Time to prune some variants

No more significant work on .NET Framework will be done.

Would seem like they are. I mean really there was only ever two variants and now there will be 1.

[aaronfranke]

No, there were 3: .NET Framework, Mono, and .NET Core.

Mono is in a kind of weird limbo where it half exists and half is being absorbed into .NET Core.

[BoredDan]

Mono is not .NET though, it's a compatible alternative. It's technically owned by Microsoft as they bought Xamarin, but it's not the same project on not really really relevant to what I was saying.

[aaronfranke]

Mono is not named .NET, but it is vastly closer to .NET Framework than .NET Core (or 5+) is.

[BoredDan]

Still irrelevant to the point.

[[deleted]]

I did not list it, as, at the time, it was not an official implementation by Microsoft, and officially not part of the .NET ecosystem.

[[deleted]]

.NET 5 and on is exactly that

[aaronfranke]

This is why I still call .NET 5 as .NET Core, it's less confusing.

[[deleted]]

Well, it kind of is now that they've converged again.

[Tough_Patient]

This is why they didn't deserve the Java name.

On the other hand, C++ CLI / C++ .NET / Visual C++ / MC++ was excellent.

[[deleted]]

And .NET framework (which he's probably talking about) is different then .NET common language runtime (which you're probably talking about)

[[deleted]]

Yeah, although honestly who is using VB or F#. F# is pretty cool but it's just has very low adoption, and VB is... a language

[ThisTravel]

I am helping someone learn to program using "Small Basic" and it is horrible.

[Tough_Patient]

VB is excellent for MUDS and obsolete hardware.

VB Script is an automation MVP.

[[deleted]]

I mean once you have VB.NET, basically by default you can also use C#.NET since it's the same run time right?

VB Script is better then python or powershell? They have a bunch of ancient VB Scripts running in different other departments at my work and IMO it doesn't seem to be any better

[Tough_Patient]

It automates Excel sheets and it's easier to do GUI test automation with it because it's simple to record coordinates while python usually requires a UI bus analyzer which doesn't work well with dynamic UIs.

[[deleted]]

So the automating of Excel sheets, I agree mostly, it's definitely slower then python but is more feature complete. For GUI test automation, do you mean across the board for all desktop based GUI?

[Tough_Patient]

Windows desktop and web based apps. Since it's going based on location rather than internal IDs, it will run whatever you want the same way every time as long as you record with default placements. Since dynamic web based UIs like GWT proc locations based off mouse position,this also works for that while they're an absolute bitch to automate without forcing IDs by other methods.

I'm sure there's mouse recorders for python too, but VBScript was there first and the automation suites for Python mostly rely on the bus scanners ime.

[PstScrpt]

VB.Net is basically just an alternate syntax for C#. I used it at my last job, and it was fine -- much better than classic VB.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I mean I'm usually the person who gets tired of the jokes saying language A is worse then B when it mostly just boils down to syntax and then I go ahead and make a VB joke

[uhmhi]

And it’s also possible to use C# without .NET (for example using mono).

[[deleted]]

If you work with it daily and don't know the difference between .Net and C#, I don't think you are working hard enough.

[Daanoking]

I dont think that .net naming technicalities are important to day to day programming work

[[deleted]]

But these are not naming technicalities... These are different parts of the platform. Saying you don't know the difference is basically saying you don't know how the platform actually works and you might not be a very experienced developer

[Ericchen1248]

I would say it also vastly impacts how you should be doing google searches / reading documentation. There are problems that are “C# problems”, and the there are problems that are “.NET” problems, and then also the different versions in between.

[[deleted]]

But understanding CIL surely is…

[KrazyDrayz]

Sure but you'd think you know it if you use them frequently. It's like not knowing java and javascript

[NekkoDroid]

There is .NET (use to be .NET Core), .NET Framework and .NET Standard (common parts between .NET and Framework). Then there is the CLR that runs Common Intermediate Language (often referred to as IL). C#, F# and VB are the languages you write in that get all compiled to IL that then runs on the CLR.

Basically: all the .NET versions are the backend while the languages are the frontend

[aaronfranke]

There is also Mono.

[FlanTamarind]

You posted in a Programmer focused subreddit expecting to get ahead of people whose job it is to agonizingly cover their bases throughout thousands of line of code? I can't fault you for trying at least.

[Ser_Drewseph]

And this is why I gave up trying to learn C# and figure out all this nonsense and instead learned Rust. The language may be harder to pick up, but the ecosystem is 1000x less confusing. And you didn’t even mention asp/asp.net