Last week I went to the Microsoft.NET developer conference, where they presented Visual Studio.NET (or 7.0).
I have the Visual Studio Beta 1 now (I received it during the conference) and was wondering if I could use their new language (C#) for coding OpenGL programs.
I don’t want to write an VERY long messsaghe about it since I am not sure a lot of people have this Beta version but: has anyone tried C# along with OpenGL ? It seems to me that this is difficult since the new .NET architecture is a managed environment and the OpenGL DLLs are not supposed to run in this environment… Which means, using them, you lose the advantages of safe-types, …
Any views on that ???
Regards.
Eric
P.S. : for those who would be tempted to flame because I mentioned MS, just refrain yourself ! I use Visual Studio 6 Enterprise for all my developments and I was curious to see Visual Studio 7 (by the way, it’s much better… or it will be when finished and debugged !).
I just got my Beta 1 CDs yesterday and haven’t had time to check it out yet. I’d also be interested to know if OpenGL can be used with C#. I’m not sure why it couldn’t but it’s something I’ll probably check out when I get the chance.
I don’t think C# will replace C++ as my choice of language, but it does appear to have some interesting traits that could be useful for certain applications. I think that for performance reasons, I’d still use C++ for games, though.
On a side note, I’m not a big VB fan but it’s nice to see they added features like Inheritance and free-threaded multithreading.
Yeah, I agree with you: I don’t think C# will ever replace C++.
Nevertheless, it has some interesting features. I don’t know if you received the “A Programmer’s Introduction to C#” by Eric Gunnerson as part of your Beta CDs (they gave the book at the DevCon), but it shows some nice things…
As far as VB is concerned, I used it on both Mac and PC with Office or as a stand-alone programming language (4-5 years ago !). It was funny to be at the conference because we had a whole session on VB 7.0: the guy was showing the new features. I could hear my neighbours saying “Yeah, great !”, “Wow that’s cool !” when he demonstrated some ‘usual’ things for C++ programmers… Each time he said “this is new”, I thought “OK, now it is C++”.
I think VB 7.0 should really be renamed B++ !!!
OK, drop me an e-mail if you try things with OpenGL and C# !
Nope, I didn’t get that book with mine. Just 2 CDs for beta1, one for window component upgrades, and a trial version of SQL Server 2000, which I’m also looking forward to checking out.
I work with VB at work because it’s what they want me to use for their programs and there have been several times where I wanted multithreading. It’ll be nice to actually be able to use it when VB7 comes out.
Aren’t they going to release C++ 7.0 too, thats what I think. Guess I’ve heard it somewhere. C# can’t ever replace C++. If that’s what microsoft think, they’re just dreaming. Hard time.
C# wouldn’t be of much use if you couldn’t use any ‘old’ libraries, now would it?
I expect a ‘base’ class to be added to encapsulate the fuss you’ll sometime will need (unsafe code) and to add some datatypes, just to make life a little bit easier. Mind you: I don’t expect MS to write this class as their focus is on DirectX, but I’m sure some freaks (including myself) will see the advantage of building one.
Originally posted by ernow: I don’t expect MS to write this class as their focus is on DirectX, but I’m sure some freaks (including myself) will see the advantage of building one.
Hi ernow !
Well, I knew that I could use the old libraries with C#. The thing is, those libraries were not designed for the .NET framework and hence MUST be used as ‘unsafe code’. If you lose the type-safe advantage of C#, then you are more or less using C++ (OK,OK, your main() function is now in an object…).
Concerning the ‘base’ class, I have just started building it !
Originally posted by kacke: Aren’t they going to release C++ 7.0 too, thats what I think. Guess I’ve heard it somewhere. C# can’t ever replace C++. If that’s what microsoft think, they’re just dreaming. Hard time.
Visual Studio.NET is Visual Studio 7.0. It includes VB, VC++, VC# and Java…
As you said, C# cannot replace C++ (not now anyway)… But it could be an interesting language !
I’ve had a chance to play with Visual Studio.NET now and I think it’s great. Haven’t had a chance to do much with C# yet, but I LOVE some of the new features in the IDE. Having a way to browse base classes right in ClassView is great. I also love the XML editor as I have started doing quite a bit with XML. The UML Designer could come in handy too. I just hope the final release of this is out before I finish school next semester so that I can still buy it at the Academic pricing.
