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Machine Learning demands it! We're being asked to be more expressive when talking to machines. Expand our vocabulary; so as to speak.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Syntactic sugar. Don't use it if you don't want to but some of these are useful.
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obermd wrote: Don't use it if you don't want to
You'll have to learn them, if you want to read new and foreign code-bases, so little choice there.
There's a trade-off though, and I can't see how much value they add that can justify the confusion and the costs. As an industry, we'd be better of with consistency and fewer changes, saving them up for a few years and come with a decent change.
Not just more sugar every umpteen months; if it were as interesting as animated icons on the desktop, then I'd be all for it, but it not even half that good, if anything, it's contra-productive and generating more costs than it is adding in value.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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This C# discussion is an age old one.
Remember:
if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Change is the enemy of working.
Better is the enemy of good.
Perfection is the enemy of good.
Static = no growth, no growth = death
....
on the other hand
when a fix corrects something broken, its a good thing.
When change = easier, its a good thing (sometimes)
....
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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jmaida wrote: When change = easier, its a good thing (sometimes)
Hmm, rarely.
And something which merely "saves keystrokes" is best avoided. I can save an awful lot of keystrokes just by not writing comments and documentation.
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agree
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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Agree. However they do not just save keystrokes, hence I like the features listed here.
Reducing the risk of errors (like the switch expressions) and reducing the amount of code that is not clearly expressing the intend of your algorithm (like ?. and ??) Is a clear benefit for me.
I can even get behind the minimalistic stuff, once they expand it to cover all classes. I have no need for one single class to look completely different. But I guess they will eventually realize the main use case for C# is not only doing cool demos at conferences and expand it to us who have "complicated" programs needing two or more classes.
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Speak for yourself. I, for example, love ?? and switch expressions for making the syntax more readable, actually. They are concise, that is, there's less syntax to achieve the same thing, meaning less overhead to parse when reading.
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I believe they are competing with JS and python, because programming Meme always noted that python is fast in a single hello world sample, And others are not. The things I'm not sure about is why companies such as JetBrains also support those bad manners, and force users to change code to some of these style, while they just could ignore the user style (that may depend on the surranding and could change readability regarding to that)
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i hope it does not sound patronizing for me to i say that i "love" the discussion of "I hate recent C# versions"  what a pleasure for an old man about to get new eyes, to savor the illuminations of many of CP's brightest-bulbs.
Kornfeld's signature quote from Einstein: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
Did make me chuckle ... as I thought of the tree-climbing mudskipper fish whose evolutionary history is detailed in Richard Dawkins' magisterial survey, "The Ancestor's Tale." (see "The Lungfishes' Tale").Quote: Another common name, ‘climbing fish’, comes from their habit of climbing mangrove trees looking for prey. They cling to the trees with the pectoral fins, aided by a kind of sucker which is made by bringing the pelvic fins together under the body.
That boomeranging thought leads me to ponder if the evolution of C# ... leads us to believe we ... are ... smart.
Is the "destiny" of C# (my favorite grab-bag of syntax and functionality masquerading as a "computer language") to have as much junk in its DNA as we, Homo Saps, do ?
cheers, Bill
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
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If you don’t like more succinct code I would just stick with COBOL
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Yes! One language to rule them all
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Some of the new features I really like. Some I don't. The issue for me is not about what I may or may not like, but the ever-increasing complexity.
People say 'just don't use the features if you don't like them'. This is fine if you mainly work on your own, but what if you work in a team? Or worse, lead one? You're likely to have a mix of people, some of whom want to explore all the new features, and some who are just learning. The latter group will really struggle because of the former - their learning curve will be much steeper, they will require more support, and they may even lose confidence and decide this isn't for them.
There's a good article here[^] that explores this. TL;DR: langauge design is a balance between keeping up, and overloading with complexity. If you don't add new features, the language dies; but new features eventually make the langauge die from complexity.
Personally, I understand the need to keep evolving the langauage, and really appreciate some of the additions, but I would prefer a slower, more measured evolution.
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I missed the latest stuff, as we are still using Visual Studio 2017. But in my opinion, null propagation, named arguments and lambdas are useful and increase readability. I haven't tried switch expression, but they look like the same goes for them. I'm not familiar with ?[] and (_, _, area)=...! Does it mean you can return multiple values? Looks a little untidy compared to returning an object.
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null conditional in variables im still nah about var x = object?.value?.pointer1;
tuples and tuple deconstructions are enjoy mainly from article from I think team creator about why he does not see many use tuples, and always just pairs which then is key/value pair, but tuples a bit more then that, and the syntax need to set and the deconstruct, so made it much easier. Can't find article but something like this C# - Tuple Trouble: Why C# Tuples Get to Break the Guidelines | Microsoft Docs
switch expression, similar, once know it clicks why would use instead of some other form makes sense. For me I dislike the syntax of most switch/break, is it : or brace  , so I prefer if/else setups.
then switch expression, for assigning a value, ohhh, yes. in comparison to if/else for value assign.
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Yes! I don't program for PCs any more any just stick to embedded in C largely because all the higher level languages have been similarly afflicted.
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I do embedded C mostly also.
However I had a fairly hairy embedded project that I ended up writing a C# wrapper around to permit faster testing (I was processing recorded data files).
The only thing I really missed from C is the preprocessor.
Why is this not a thing in C#?
#define FOOT_PER_MILE 5280.0
#define INCH_PER_FOOT 12.0
#define INCH_PER_MILE (FOOT_PER_MILE * INCH_PER_FOOT)
double miles = 12.54;
double inches;
...
inches = miles * INCH_PER_MILE;
In a lot of embedded applications you don't have GB of ram to use. Sometimes you are stuck with KB of RAM. It is hard to beat inline constants when squeezing a program into a resource limited processor.
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It used to be that C# could tell a story, but not now and that has greatly reduced the maintainability.
A lot of this has to do with it going to Open Source with its rapid cycle of updates. There is some perceived benefit to constant change. No one seems to be factoring in cost. Is there any wonder that there is a talent shortage?
There is no benefit to terseness if it reduces readability or maintainability.
And don't think this stuff is never used. You always have some contractors on the bleeding edge and they just create problems for people that want to engineer reliable, maintainable solutions. Companies may think it's new and hot, but it is just difficult to maintain.
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I am delighted with some recent extensions, with others I'm indifferent and I don't hate any.
Sorry for my bad English
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This is in preparation for the launch of C# Classic, the new clean and back-to-basics version that everyone will be talking about in a couple of years.
* Smaller footprint
* Faster
* Write clean, consistent code with your team
The new C# Classic!
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MS is trying to make C# look like nasty Python, JS, Go, and the rest of the bunch. So bad is "dotnet new console" that I had to write my own "Hello World" template. I do not program with top-level statements, and I never will. So bad is it that I will need to write a processor to parse new, terrible C# syntax, and refactor to old style.
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What about the ternary operator? You could argue that it doesn't make code more readable and not use it, but I guess you got somehow accustomed to it. (By the way: what is not to like about optional arguments or naming arguments?)
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The ternary operator is in C. I use it. It is not any more efficient than a simpler if else construct, but visual scope matters as well. Being able to see more of the code on the screen at the same time can make coding/debugging faster and easier.
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Though I know C# very well, I stick with VB.NET simply because Microsoft is no longer updating the language with all the screwy constructs they keep adding to C#.
Both languages are highly mature and no longer really need any new additions and have been that way for quite some time. However, Microsoft can't seem to let anything be even if it doesn't require MS engineers mucking about with it...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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