tsofras

I am a man, not a woman , thx guys for the reply, i am not new to programming, i know some things about pascal, c , c++, html, xml, wml, asp.net i started reading and using linux, but i am not experienced in anything from the above. That's why i decided that if i want to be a serius programmer i have to learn a serius language. I decided to go on with C#, not only because of windows but because i think it is the future in programming (maybe i will be wrong)...that's why i need your help and cause i have to get a job i a some months, i don't have the time to learn both of these languages

uman

Ooble, how is requiring Mono any different from requiring the JRE?

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Libervisco

Hm, hello..

The guy's choice is in the end his own concern for his own reasons and his own views and noone should really interfere with that besides normal discussion and maybe even trying to persuade him to what you think is best for him.

Anyway, I am against C# much more compared to C/C++, Python, PHP and any other language that is open and free and thus certainly cross platform. C# was developed by MS, as is Java by Sun and are not fully open languages for that matter as the default compilers and IDEs are proprietary and coming from these two companies.
C has a great and long history not just because it was probably the first language to enable portability, but because it was free. It became a defacto standard and the end of its popularity is still hard to see anywhere in the future. Both Java and C# are based on this open language. Anyway, my strong stance is that if I want to learn programming I'll be ultimately much better of learning an open language that is community owned and developed than one that is made by a corporation. I also feel its the only way any of my future programming skills will mean the most as programs developed in open languages will always be usable and runnable on any platform as there will never be shortage of compilers and tools for them. I also want to learn programming to contribute the Free Software community.

I am now starting with python (already learned some basics).

Thanks
Daniel

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NeuralClone

Regarding C# as a proprietary language:

C# itself is not a proprietary language. Unlike Sun's Java, it was submitted to a standards board:

Standard ECMA-334: C# Language Specification

The development of the actual language isn't completely in Microsoft's hands anymore. The .NET Framework, which is NOT C#, is a different story altogether. Additionally, the .NET Framework is currently being ported to several other operating systems (Mono is probably the furthest alone).

The goal of C# and the .NET Framework is very much like that of Java: platform independence. The difference is that .NET supports a wide variety of languages (managed C++, Visual Basic, and C# to name a few) and Java forces you to use one specific language. As much as Sun would like people to believe, Java isn't good for every application. If anything, I find C# and the .NET Framework to be less restrictive than Java, not more. It's very possible (and quite easy) to write code that will run in Windows and Linux using the .NET Framework.

Speaking as a fairly experienced C# programmer (both in Windows and in Linux), I think C# is a very well-designed language and would be great for both experienced and inexperienced programmers to pick up. Yes, even if you hate Microsoft. I'm not saying that C# will solve all the world's programming problems (no language can do that) but it is a very powerful tool that shouldn't be ignored simply because Microsoft initially developed it. If Microsoft has done one thing right over the years, I think C#/.NET is it.

I understand people's dislike of Microsoft but I really don't think they deserve to be criticized for their creation of C# or the .NET Framework. They are actually very well-designed.

Additionally, it's possible to use a completely open source IDE for .NET that is almost as good as Microsoft Visual Studio. For those of you interested, check out #develop. As far as open source projects go, this one is very polished. You can even convert existing Visual Studio projects to the #develop format. There is a slight crashing problem with the current build but there is a pretty easy way to fix the problem.