Re: The greatest feature of the language is ....

[Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>]

Richard Riehle wrote:
> People are inventing new languages all the time.   Most recently,
> Microsoft has introduced a new language call C#, pronounced
> C Sharp.    Because Microsoft has its money behind the success
> of this language, it will probably become important.  [...]

Well, when Ada was created everyone was saying that it was going to be
an important language _because_ it had the biggest possible backer at
the time, the US DoD. The report that recommended the end of the Ada
mandate brightly made the remark that after all, the biggest software
consumer was no longer the DoD, and that played a lot in the perceived
success of the language. 

The software business is highly volatile, consumers relative
importance can vary quickly, and so can producer relative importance.

> [...] C# will be included in the Visual Studio release 7.  It is
> going to be an important language.

Until Visual Studio release 8 ;-). Name a Microsoft technology that
Microsoft did not obsolete by a new revolutionary important product or
piles of minor incompatible change within two years?

-- 
Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>