What are the scenarios in which C# has an advantage over other languages?

Question

Here on the site have some similar questions, for example, What are the ideal use scenarios for Node.js? and Why choose C instead of C++ or C++ instead of C?

I would like something in this sense but in concern to C# to develop a web application, what are its main characteristics (performance, flexibility, organization, ...)? When its use is advantageous compared to other languages?

Answer 1

Wictor has already commented on something important, but this is also a common mistake.

Rare languages work as well on a Microsoft technology stack as C#. Not by it, but by the infrastructure around it. And let’s face it that on desktop we practically only look at Windows.

The error is that C# is not suitable for all platforms and is committed to anything that comes up that is relevant. I gave a talk about it.

Where it will be used is not criterion.

Let’s understand that C# is a language like Nterprise, then it comes with a very strong infra. She is of general purpose, so you can do almost everything with her, you better ask where she does not fit.

I will leave aside taste and experience. This is important. Doing what you like helps a lot. Knowing how to use well makes everything more productive and usually gives better quality.

Performance

C# performance is excellent and can beat C or C++ into simpler codes. Of course, maximum performance with a lot of effort will be achieved with C or C++, or Assembly in some cases. But it really takes a lot of work. From my other talk:

C# today gives much more importance to performance than 10, 15 years ago.

If by performance you’re talking about performing real team, which is rare to need, it’s possible, but C# takes a lot of effort because of Garbage Collector, and in some cases hard real time can’t.

.NET Native will help more in overall performance. But it may get worse in some specific points. Note that this is a specific implementation of *Runtime, nothing to do with the language itself. It will not have continuity, but part of its benefits is now on . NET 5.

"Every day" has more novelties to improve performance, but has always been a pragmatic language on this, compared to the idealism of some languages, as Java has.

Flexibility

C# is flexible and versatile, difficult to answer something specific about this, in general meets almost every need. It’s powerful, it can solve reasonably well in almost every situation, regardless of being just an academic way of seeing (Turing complete), I mean, in practice it does well.

Gives, but is not suitable to make an operating system (COSMOS, Sharpos, Singularity, Phlegms, MEUSE and Midori). Many restrictions to make a good driver. Does not compare with C++ for this, what much of the question is already answered there.

It’s not a language of script, but can be used (in C# 9 this has improved a lot). You can use embedded within some databases, today may in web browsers to do frontend (nor will I mention backend now, and has one of the best libraries for this), runs all platforms mainstream, including mobile, on all important servers, including cloud (AWS, Google), with own optimizations for this (Azure), and is getting better at Iot.

The rest is library, which has much for her.

Organizing

I’m not sure what that means and it can only be based on opinion. I consider it well organized by various criteria. It has good architecture, syntax, semantics, general ecosystem, including excellent productivity and quality tools.

Ease

It’s a relatively easy language for the power it has, much more than C++, and compared to C, it depends. C is easier to learn and harder to use, mainly by having fewer abstractions, fewer things ready, and by not having automatic memory management.

It is a very well defined language and only not very easy because it involves many concepts.

Languages of script are easier. But they are less robust and less scalable. C# is made for large, lasting projects that are highly relevant. Tend to be more productive in the beginning.

Web backend (the question changed midway)

I told you it also runs on frontend (in a brief lecture of mine of TDC 2018), and I go with it firmly, even if it is experimental. For my taste I find more business, at least for application, although I am not a fan of web applications, but have reason to use. For websites it’s different, they can’t be complex, so I don’t know, it depends. I think Blazor will be better than Angular, React, all that stuff.

The language itself changes little or nothing to web development on backend. Makes more difference to the task itself.

C# is more scalable, like I said, but that’s not a strong advantage. Less scalable languages can be used in large projects with the right culture. And I’m talking about scaling the project, I’m not talking about scale, this can be done with any language.

Of course, more efficient languages can decrease the need for runscale. C# may be dozens of times faster than Ruby, for example, and may need a single server instead of several parrudos servers. But your decision on other points will make more difference. Sqlite can scale better than an SQL Server in some scenarios, as long as one knows what they’re doing.

It has huge websites made in each of the languages mainstream, all beauty. This one is done in C#, is one of the 30/50 most accessed sites in the world, and runs on 11 servers, but could run in only 1 with risk of bottlenecks at some times. Okay? You don’t need to use languages that are potentially faster with an effort to get good results, and those languages that can be faster run a serious safety risk in an environment where this is absurdly important.

Have sites made in languages script that climb in performance well, with the right architecture, but it costs very expensive. One of the reasons I refuse to contribute to Wikipedia is because it is ecologically and economically incorrect. Some sites succumbed and switched languages to one that scale better, Twitter is an example and Scala is the tip :)

One of the advantages of C# is its ecosystem, it’s not the best, but it tries to be. It doesn’t have trocentos frameworks, but there is one who has learned from his own mistakes and those of others. And it has the advantage of not being too tied to the legacy. Including the .NET Core has been optimized for this. There’s a lot of good stuff. But it’s not the language. Even all this can be used with other languages that run on top of the CLR.

It has details, but nothing very important that makes C# less suitable than other languages. But I defend other languages when the project is small, it won’t meet that much demand, it won’t last long.

Extra

Particularly if more market time is critical to choosing the language, you should use Fortran, or Lisp, or COBOL. It is common that what is longer is worse because it could not learn from the mistakes and she has a very heavy bad legacy. I would use PHP for some things on the web, but in general it’s one of the most wrong languages ever created, and its evolution is usually on top of new mistakes, that’s pretty reckless. And I can’t imagine why PHP would be better on Linux and not on Windows, and why C# would be good on Windows and not Linux.

I have criticisms of C#, but I have more of the other languages. What I like most about C# and its ecosystem is that it’s evolving very well, they’re doing what they need, not at the speed I wanted, not everything I want, and it has reasons to be like this, but the others are behind. I’ve also enjoyed the evolution of C++, but her legacy is very heavy. A middle ground language between C++ without the legacy and C# would be sensational, almost unanimous and Microsoft was developing it, but it was over (see Midori above).

I like some more recent language initiatives, an ideal new language would look for D, Rust, Go, Kotlin, Swift, Nim, Jai, F#, and others much less known.