On 7 January 2012 22:22, Nick Sabalausky <a@a.a> wrote:

So...you agree that it's widespread...and you hate it...Ok, I give up:
Exactly how is that *not* "overrated"?

In that, I don't think most people would rate it 10/10 :)

I'll give it maybe... 7/10. I mean, it's pretty good. It's universally accepted, definitely stood the test of time, and produced much of the worlds best software.

But it's old and outdated, refuses to respond to modern updates/requests in reasonable time, and a lot of modern features they EVENTUALLY put in there just don't address concerns that, at least my circle of developers, care about.

Also they tend to just bloat the already bloated as hell standard library!

...and I think most people agree. So no, I don't think it's overrated, I think it's quite fairly rated :P

But I tend to get the impression that
there are a lot of "professionals" out there who would completely and
immediately shun a language based *purely* on a lack of full integration
with VS. Actually, I think you're one of the people who have pretty much
told me exactly that, that there are many such professionals who would do
that.

Yup, and I believe that's completely true :)

I expect a huge surge of developers will appear the moment a quality VS integration exists.

There was a time when I considered D and C# to be tied as my favorite
languages (And yes, I was using VS.NET for all my C# work). Eventually, I
became more and more frustrated by trying to work around C#'s limitations
(Try making a basic, let alone realistically useful, set of generic
functional tools! Without at least an IArithmetic, it's not realistically
possible. Or do a simple reinterpret cast without diving into dark corners
of the API.) It wasn't long before using C# felt like a full-time exercise
in fighting the damn compiler. But at the same time, D just kept feeling
more and more natural - even without a fancy IDE.

Well I'm certainly not sharing that feeling, at least not yet. I'd like to think it might get there though with some more time...

So, based on personal experience, I tend to call "bullshit" on the idea that
C#/VS.NET is highly productive for anything except GUI apps that only need
the very basic UI controls and don't do a lot under the hood. And ok, maybe
it's highly productive compared to C++, but that sure as hell isn't saying
much.

I'm sure you've got more experience than me in this area.. All I've ever made with C# were some nice tools/GUI apps.

The experience was always elegant and enjoyable. My only complaint is that I created them so much faster than I expected... then I was finished, and had to get back on to C/C++ work again :(

Honest to god, I'm *more* productive with D and Programmer's Notepad 2 than
I ever was with C#/VS.NET. And much happier too (at least when I'm actually
coding, anyway ;)) But I never would have discovered that if I had been an
IDE-snob. Obviously you're not one, as you pointed out you've at least tried
things the other way, too. But from what you describe, it appears that a lot
of people in the industry *are* staunch IDE-snobs.

Well you're obviously weird ;)

Oh I'm definitely an IDE snob. I use all the other tools for cross platform dev, automation, homebrew hobby work, etc, but I can't stand editing code without a nice editor, the ability to hit ctrl-F7, and even debug, instantly and seamlessly.

I go miles out of my way to integrate whatever toolchain I'm working with into VS as best I can. The difference between me and most others like me is, I go out of my way, whereas most other people, if said integration doesn't already exist, will just give up and move with something else.

I will definitely admit though, VS2010 was a major step backwards.. Everything suddenly got all slow and buggy.

Infact, I do feel it's been going backwards since VS6... Although I think 2005 was a good year :)

2010 is the best VS yet though when it comes to custom workflow integration, they are getting better at that, they're just ruining the rest of the actual IDE in the mean time! >_<