C# has a lot of features that are kind of obscure but are really cool when you need them. When I was young and reckless I once declared one particular C# feature stupid and useless. Less than a week later I had to use this feature to avoid writing some ugly code and realized how useful and deep the feature was. Since then I have learned not to question Anders's (Hallowed be His name!) wisdom even when I do not understand it. A few days ago I was astonished to find a new use for another feature that I thought I fully understood. According to the C# designers when they evaluate a feature they favor features that have multiple uses over features that solve only one problem. It seems like I underestimated the C# team once again and by now I should have known better. The feature in question is explicit interface implementation...

    Lets end this once and for all! In .NET it is ID and not Id. I did not make this up. It is in the framework design guidelines despite the fact that the .NET Framework contains counterexamples. I have a proof:


I recommend seeing the full video if you are a .NET developer but the issue in question is described on the slide on 52:25.

   Here comes part 2 of the "Java vs C#" series. I still want to remind you to read part 0 and part 1 because they contain my motivation and important side notes but if you do not feel like reading them just remember that I only compare the C# and the Java language and claim that C# is better but do not compare the Java and .NET platforms and do not claim anything about the platforms as a whole (at least not in these articles). Read on to find out why Java's approach of letting methods be virtual by default is wrong...

   After I published part 0 I was criticized for being biased. I was told that the title suggested neutrality but the actual article is not neutral and "Why C# Is Better than Java" would have been a better title. In fact "Java vs. C#" was just a working title that I forgot to change and I agree that the suggested title would have been better. I was criticized for exaggerating the damage caused by the Java approach and overstating the benefits of the C# approach. While this may be true it should be clear that these are real problems and I am not making them up. I do not pretend to have discovered them. In fact I have read about most of the issues listed here in interviews and articles by both Java and C# designers. The reader is also advised to read part 0 where my motivation is clearly described.

   And now lets get into today's topic - generics...

   As you may know I am a kind of programming language geek. Despite the fact that every software developer uses one or more programming languages most developers do not care much about them. Some are interested in software design patterns, some care more about development methodologies, some are algorithm guys, some like diving deep into databases, many are just interested in technologies and frameworks and there are even those who do not have a real passion but work as developers because this is how they pay the bills. Well my passion are programming languages and while I do not have the opportunity to work professionally on a compiler or even a parser I try to follow the development of popular programming languages and enjoy reading the motivation for language design decisions and compiler implementation decisions that language developers post online. I also like digging in programming language history...