What Language Features Do You Miss In C#?

[Paulo Zemek]

Support to use untyped generics. That is, everytime I have a generic type I also create a non-generic interface so I can use the object without using reflection/dynamic but with a considerable good speed. But it would be great if that was automatic. That is: List<int> only accepts int. I receive it in as a List<> parameter. In this case, all the T parameters, usually seen as int, could be seen as object, doing the casts that are necessary... Well, for the List itself we can already use the IList... but it will be great to have such resource so we could avoid creating interfaces to allow "the more generic, non-generic" call (that is, more generic because it is untyped... I also hate the name generic... it should be typed... a typed list... the ArrayList is the generic one... hehe).

[Espen Harlinn]

You certainly go straight to The Heart of Everything[^]

Espen Harlinn Principal Architect, Software - Goodtech Projects & Services AS Projects promoting programming in "natural language" are intrinsically doomed to fail. Edsger W.Dijkstra

[Kent Sharkey]

Hmm. So, for every generic, you also get a Foo (with a better name)? Yeah, I could see how that might be handy for reuse: Bag, Bag etc. shoved into a generic Sort(Bag) method?

-------------- TTFN - Kent

[Steve Wellens]

sprintf sscanf

Steve Wellens

[Paulo Zemek]

In my case, actually, for every Foo<T> I also have an IFoo where the parameters are as object instead of T. I think java have such feature (I know, in java the implementation is completely different)... I think they use: Foo<?> to say that they don't know the type being used. It is slower than having it rightly typed, but it is faster than having it as dynamic or through reflection.

[thrakazog]

My answer is always multiple inheritance. Times that I would use it are rare. But when those times come up man do I ever want that.

Play my game Gravity: IOS[^], Android[^], Windows Phone 7[^]

[Single Step Debugger]

Something from Transact SQL – the “in” clause. Something like:

if(myShoeSize in (16, 12, 17, 32) )
{
imAMutant = true;
}

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[AspDotNetDev]

There is .Contains.

Thou mewling ill-breeding pignut!

[PIEBALDconsult]

A goto case is not a goto. But, yes, I don't like break in a switch; in my opinion break should only be for loops only.

[PIEBALDconsult]

HashSet

[PIEBALDconsult]

Method-scoped variables like in VB (static). Defining Extension Methods by applying the Attribute like in VB (rather than this). A proper assignment operator like in Pascal := :-D A proper define directive like in C/C++ # define Pi 3.14 Support for enum in where clauses for generic types -- class C<T> where T : enum ... No default modifiers (public, private, virtual, sealed, etc.). Multiple Inheritence would be good too.

[Single Step Debugger]

Yes I know. We can also implement it in C++ using operator overloading. But the point is for a language future, not a pattern, collection or utility class.

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[Single Step Debugger]

This one is type dependent and not a language future but some class method. Same as Split() (very useful method by the way) or IsNullOrEmpty() for example.

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[PIEBALDconsult]

Yet HasSet allows other operations, such as union and intersection; would you argue for syntax to allow every such operation? I wouldn't.

[H Brydon]

What I would like to see in the language: - Destructors that destruct (not the silly Dispose() stuff) [you can easily trigger local garbage collection with an exit from scope] - Ability to use arrays with non-zero origin - inline operator||(), inline operator&&() which implement short circuit logic

-- Harvey

[Marc Clifton]

Multiple inheritance. Interfaces are useful as abstractions, but there are times I want to inherit concrete functionality from multiple classes. Marc

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[Brady Kelly]

I want lambda expressions, that can be evaluated at compile time, allowed in attributes, to avoid nasty string literals.

[Sander Rossel]

Having a generic type constraint on operators. Something where T : +, -, >, < Or something. Or just provide one easy way to work with numerics, for example: Something where T : numeric After which you can use +, -, >, < etc. by default and T can be int16, int 32, int64, single, byte, double, decimal or an unsigned of those.

It's an OO world.

public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{
public void DoWork(){ throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}

[Chris C B]

On error resume next

[JeremyBob]

+1 from me