RE: How C# does fit the bill? (was: MISRA C)

["Tegels, Kent" <Kent.Tegels () hdrinc com>]

Well, here's my $0.02 USD on this.

C# is widely implemented on the Microsoft platform and is making
in-roads elsewhere. Its been submitted to ECMA for consideration for
"standardization." Personally I feel C# is still fairly young and will
grow a lot over the next few years. In the next update to the .NET
framework, C# finally gets generics, partial classes and whole bunch of
other tweaks.
[http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/1/6/81682478-4018-48fe-9e5e-f8
7a44af3db9/SpecificationVer2.doc]

I can't really speak to how well designed of a language it is because
that's a fairly selective standard. Perhaps Mr. Hejlsberg will speak to
that more. It does what I need it to do without getting the way, so I
suppose its fine in that sense. 

C# seems as type-safe was you want it to be. For me, that's always a
consideration so I make sure that my editors and so on are set up to do
require it or not compile. That's not to say you can't get yourself into
configurations that lead to dubious type safety with the language and
tools. So far, though, I've not really gotten bit by such things. Late
binding is sometimes an issue, so we do have to dance around that if we
want to enforce type-safety.

Is it really an Object-Oriented language? Again, I suppose that depends
on how you define that "standard" and what you expect. No multiple
inheritance in C#. That's probably a good thing, though.

In the final analysis, I suppose that C# is good enough for me be
productive in. Its much better in that sense that the "Tangled Triad of
MS C++, MFC and COM. Its easier to write "more secure" code in and its
much easier to write security-driven code in than what we've had before.

Thanks!
kt

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Erik Anderson
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 6:14 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [SC-L] How C# does fit the bill? (was: MISRA C)

> > > "David Crocker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 12/31/03 3:17:09 PM >>>
DC> What I would like to see is a widely-implemented, well-designed, 
DC> type-safe object-oriented language.
DC> Eiffel comes close but is not widely implemented or used. The 
DC> present version of Ada (95) is a poor choice for serious O-O 
DC> development. Maybe in future we will see a C++ subset based on 
DC> extending the MISRA standard.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts (and anybody else's) on how
well C# fits this criteria and does not. And where does it meet secure
coding practices and where it fails. I'm not after a MS bashing thread
(or flame wars) but an honest study and impression.

As several threads in the list have pointed out, good security and
coding practices are not exclusively dependent on the language used but
the programmer writing it. However, some languages do lend themselves to
easier implementations than others (e.g. Java's sandbox approach).

> From my limited use of it, I think it holds a lot of potential. I've
been able to easily create database readers, edit forms, and even read
binary files mixed with 8, 16, & 32-bit integers from 1985. This was
possible because of the classes provided in the .NET Framework and the
similarity of the language itself to C/C++/Java. But, I'm sure many of
you in the group have far more extensive experience than I. So what say
you?

Oh, and Happy New Year ;)

--
Erik W. Anderson, GIS
Analyst         WWW:    http://www.kitsapgov.com/gis/

Kitsap County
GIS                     E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

614 Division St., MS-21                 Voice:  (360) 337-4443
Port Orchard, WA  98366-4682            FAX:    (360) 337-4555