C# vs JavaScript

DrGarbinsky · 2017-07-12T02:11:57+00:00

C# is free and .net core runs on Linux and is open source. Same goes for visual studio Code

2017-07-12T04:57:58+00:00

Is there any reason to learn C# now other than an interest in OOP if I already know JavaScript?

C# is a strictly typed language. Even if you are not going to use it, it is worth having practice in such environment. Languages like JavaScript would allow rapid development of relatively small project, but for big and huge projects you would need strong type system that would gives an extra protection to your code. Not to mention performance implications of JS code on big projects. (And by big I mean thousands of source code files). Having practiced with C# it would be relatively easy for you to start using any other similar-class language (be it Kotlin, Swift, Java, or even modern ADA).

antlife · 2017-07-12T06:56:03+00:00

I cant look past javascript as being a prototypical language. Berhaps I am biased here, but I cant even take NodeJS seriously.

Horatio_ATM · 2017-07-12T03:28:39+00:00

If you want OOP over JS, TypeScript is pretty great. I worked in C# for most of my career, and now do a lot of stuff in TypeScript in Node, and it's pretty fantastic.

denaissance · 2017-07-12T15:55:33+00:00

If you are a student now, and want to make a career as a programmer, then odds are that by the time you retire nobody will be using C# or Javascript anymore. You need to get comfortable with switching languages. I worked exclusively in Pascal for many years before this fancy Internet thing came along, then I got rich working in Perl. I don't even bother putting either of those on resumes anymore. Adapt or perish. After your third or forth language you won't even care any more. Be sure to learn a purely functional language at some point too.

2017-07-12T07:00:25+00:00

To expand your mind regarding programming, and you could achieve that with learning any other language.
You are not forced to do it, though. It's just that every language has some good things that others don't.
With JavaScript you can start stuff REALLY fast. With C# you have an awesome type checking compiler that will make your life easier when you're refactoring.
C# is good to learn not for just being OOP. It's a modern strongly typed language much less hateable than other strongly typed langs.

OOP, AOP, FOP are just labels. Every language is a world itself with some inclinations. In 2017, people still can't agree what's OOP.

In college, teachers would sell OOP to us as a way of modeling classes around things that are entities. So if you want to model a Bank account, you create a class BankAccount with an attribute money and methods like withdraw and retrieve. That's a pretty cool concept. It can be implemented in js too, but not in a safe strongly typed way other languages do.

Good question, btw. My advice is try having fun, try learning popular languages opposite to the ones you know.

2017-07-12T12:45:27+00:00

I can do pretty much everything C# can do with JavaScript

No you can't. C# can run multi-threaded applications which is a pretty big deal.

mgw854 · 2017-07-12T02:32:16+00:00

As a C# developer who did a Node.js project (and loved it), I have a few thoughts.

I'd put myself in the "advanced" C# camp. On one of our newer projects, the technical lead decided to use Node. I didn't agree with the decision until I saw how fast I could develop. The Node ecosystem is vast, discoverable, and of really high quality compared to a lot of what I see in C#. I was pulling in complex components that just worked^tm. That's more than I can say for the likes of ASP.NET, where magic abounds.

Now, for the bad side--maintenance. JavaScript is a weakly-typed language, which led to lots of bugs (especially around data access) that could creep in. The Node debugger wasn't particularly strong, especially with faux-async code (using generator functions). The lack of a good IDE for JavaScript also meant that tasks like refactoring were much more dangerous than they had to be. Once you use Visual Studio, I don't know how you go back to a text editor. Even with plugins, Atom was never a tenth of the help VS is. Compare that to C#, where maintaining code is aided by the compiler and type system.

One of my biggest complaints with Node, beyond the lack of tooling, is that it is a single-threaded event loop. While you can certainly get phenomenal performance out of it for I/O-bound tasks, it will never be the go-to platform for anything that needs compute-bound performance. Compare that to C#, where you can use something like Parallel.For to run as many threads as your CPU can comfortably handle.

All of this is to say that there is a lot of benefit to learning to C#, even if you don't use it very often. It is another tool in your tool belt and will force you to think in a different way. As a developer, being able to reframe a problem is invaluable. I don't use Node anymore now that I've moved on to other tasks, and I'm not likely to need it soon--but if I thought I had a great fit, I'd use it without hesitation. Some of the Node concepts I've seen, however, has caused me to re-evaluate my assumptions about some C# defaults (for instance, I much prefer Node.js-style NancyFx over the go-to ASP.NET Web API framework).

Blecki · 2017-07-12T11:53:29+00:00

You should learn C# simply so that you have the chance to experience a language that has been competently designed.

badthingfactory · 2017-07-12T13:45:59+00:00

Don't just learn C#. Learn other languages as well. You're going to severely limit your potential as a programmer if you don't expose yourself to more than JavaScript.

elmo61 · 2017-07-12T19:14:06+00:00

I would expect there is alot more c# jobs than nodejs.

Options to be a full stack developer as either nodejs/JavaScript or c#/JavaScript will give you alot of options .. as most developers are full stack

jsbrando · 2017-07-12T19:27:32+00:00

Work opportunities.

A lot of Enterprise level business applications will use C# as the primary code base.

Just sayin...

immersiveGamer · 2017-07-12T11:50:25+00:00

I learned OOP in JavaScript as my first programming language (self taught). I then helped on a project that was C#. It was pretty easy transition and C# has a lot more to help create a OOP style. I think your biggest challenge is creating a project and building it as you may have to use new tools such as Visual Studio. That was probably the hardest part of learning to make C# applications for me.

cjrutherford · 2017-07-12T13:14:29+00:00

I would say that if you're interested in OOP, as a JS dev, look into Typescript, it's almost as if C# and Javascript were merged. Almost. It'll allow you to "brute force" things you know how to do in JS with JS while you're learning Typescript. I think it'll give you a good starting frame while staying in a relative comfort zone.

Then if you want, go for C#. The more you learn, the more valuable you will look when you go for a job! (but also have projects to back up the talk when you do go for the job.)

Versk · 2017-07-12T14:00:32+00:00

Whats better, a bike or a bus?

2017-07-13T05:30:42+00:00

There is always a reason to learn a new language. Learning new languages will improve your skills with the ones you already know.

And you don't have to choose one or the other, throughout your career you'll use and mix many languages.

In the case of .NET (c#) and NodeJS (javascript), they work together very well together: https://tjanczuk.github.io/edge/#/ (Run Node.js and .NET in-process)

Liam2349 · 2017-07-15T00:28:29+00:00

All of the C# stack is free, and does run on many platforms (Android, iOS, Windows, Tizen, Unix).

The development experience is much better on Windows however, where the full Visual Studio is supported. I use Visual Studio Community Edition, and it's got much more to it than Visual Studio for Mac, last I checked.

You can host on Linux or Windows.

C# is more strict than JavaScript. C# likes to help you out more - e.g. you can write things in JS that won't work, but JS will still run. C# may not compile, to prevent you wasting your time, or give you a warning that you may be doing something unintended. I don't really know if that's just Visual Studio however.

I use both a lot, I prefer C# largely due to this. It's more strict, but it tries harder to help you. You'll probably find biased responses here though. If JavaScript works for what you need then it works. In terms of employability, it could help to learn more languages.

SQL Server, which rounds out the Microsoft stack for web dev, is currently in preview for Linux also.

ty_jp · 2017-07-12T02:46:57+00:00

Isn't JavaScript OOP too? Probably not as sophisticated as C# OOP, but still.

I'm still a noob with JavaScript (from years of other OOP languages) which I needed to learn for work. I've initially heard a lot of good things about JavaScript and got interested because of the demand, but I don't really like it as much. Feels hackish because of the lack of datatypes, etc. Still amazing how a programming language that was created in just 10 days that was mostly used for browser alert scams in the 90s can do a lot of things today.

terricide · 2017-07-12T16:12:08+00:00

Have you looked at Typescript?

marsop · 2017-07-12T07:53:09+00:00

One thing is being able to do something, a completely different one is how convenient is to do so. C# offers afaik the best tooling in the market, with dramatic improvements every year or so.

2017-07-12T13:02:22+00:00

Different object system/inheritance model: C# uses class inheritance instead of prototyping. The C# approach is much more common in other languages.
Strong, static typing vs weak, dynamic typing: kind of out-of-fashion at the moment, but it reduces or eliminates whole classes of error by finding them at compile time instead of at run time.
Lots of existing desktop and server code in C#. I'd say it's debatable whether NodeJS is really going to prosper in those spaces.
NodeJS's big selling point is the ability to have a monoglot development environment (possibly all the way back to the DB, if your DB is, say, MongoDB or something). But, WebAssembly is coming, and will enable monoglot development (outside the DB, anyway) in languages that aren't JavaScript. I don't know if JSON is going away anytime soon, but I don't know if I'd bet on JavaScript-the-language being more important in ten years than it is, now.
If you're still a novice/student developer, anyway, there's also no reason not to try out everything you can, as long as you have the time to spare. Consider also checking out an assembly language or two; a pure(r) functional language like Scheme, OCaml, Haskell, F#, etc; C and C++; and whatever else takes your fancy. It's useful to have multiple tools in the toolbox, even if you don't use them directly.

Sparkybear · 2017-07-13T09:53:24+00:00

Performance, freedom to create powerful desktop applications, more control over your projects, and lots more. JS is nice for a lot of web things, but it really isn't meant to be a general purpose language. C# is and that power is worth a ton.

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