To learn .NET or to not learn .NET?

[Brian23]

I'm taking an advanced computer course at my High School. It's a self study class, so I can pick my own curriculum. After I finish with our school's web page in a few weeks, I'm gonna start doing C++. I took a class on MS C++ version 6 last year, and I liked it a lot. I could continue learning that this year, but my teacher is recomending that I learn C Sharp (.NET) instead. He said that C++ is being phased out for the .NET platform. I've looked at some C# code, and it looks too much like VB to me. I never liked VB, so I'm confused about what I should do. What do you guys think would be the most benifical for me to learn. (I plan on going into Computer Engineering next year at Virginia Tech.)

 

[ajayjuneja]

I'm a junior @ Carnegie Mellon in CS & Robotics. I spent some time learning c# this past summer -- it's a really nice language, and certainly babies you and gives you lots of useful base classes from the .NET framework.

I would however, strongly recommend that you spend the majority of your time using C++ and C. C++ is far from being phased out, and the world is not all microsoft. Universities are heavy on the unix side, and the C/C++ (especially C) knowledge will come in handy. I also found that one appreciates what C# does for you more after you see the extra work C++ and C are.

In the end though, CS isn't about the language, it's about the thinking process.

 

[Martin]

C# won't be of much use to you in CompEng, I suggest C/C++

 

[Brian23]

Yeah, I didn't think that C was being phased out. My computer teacher said that by 2006 C++ would be incompatable with the current release of Windows. I doubt that M$ can make it go away that easly though. It's one of the best languages out there, and it's platform independant so even if MS did phase it out, I'm sure that the Linux comunity would still use it. I doubt that the .NET framework will become available for Linux, so you would have to know C++ to code for that platform anyways.

 

[kgraeme]

My coworker who is extremely hyped about .NET suggests C++ as an excellent foundation to learn C# and Java. Most CS courses I've peeked in on at the campus I work at are teaching Java almost exclusively.

 

[AU Tiger]

If you can do Java or C++ it will help with C#. Very similar.