[Info-vax] BASIC (and Horizon)

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/31/2024 6:18 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:13:26 -0500, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> 
>> On 1/31/2024 4:24 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 10:20:35 -0500, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>
>>>> For the not VB.NET knowledgable:
>>>>
>>>> Using o1 As New X("A")
>>>>        ...
>>>> End Using
>>>>
>>>> calls o1.Dispose() when the block is exited no matter how it is exited -
>>>> normal or exception does not matter Dispose is always called.
>>>
>>> Python has “context managers” which are a generalization of this. It also
>>> has “try/finally” blocks, which are good for one-off cases.
>>
>> C# was born with using (2002), Python got with in 2.5 (2006)
>> and Java got try with resource in 1.7 (2011).	
>>
>> MS got a good idea and the rest copied it.
> 
> That is also true of async/await. But note that Python is the only one
> of the three that tries to use reference-counting as an alternative to
> garbage collection.

All of them use garbage collection.

Java and C# use tracing garbage collection.

Python use both tracing garbage collection and reference
counting garbage collection. Or more precisely the common
implementation CPython does - there are other Python
implementations that use only tracing garbage collection.

> And now it looks like C# might be shuffling off into those retirement
> pastures
> <https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/31/microsoft_seeks_rust_developers/>.

Very interesting for Rust, but not particular important for C#.

C# is primarily for business applications.

That Microsoft will rewrite some platform software supporting
moving data within Office 365 in Azure from C# to Rust does
not indicate the end of C#.

I would consider it more negative for Go. Go is big in that
type of cloud and/or container platform software, so MS not
picking Go may indicate something.

Arne