This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Tim Myers
As a new developer people tend to steer you towards Python or to an even greater degree, JavaScript.
I know this to be the case because I’ve done this myself. But I think I’ve had a change of heart.
You see the barrier to entry with JavaScript is VERY low. Technically all you need is VSCode and a Web Browser. Both free and bot available on almost every OS.
Tip: if you setup VSCode in the cloud like I describe here:
you can literally code on a tablet.
When I was first exposed to Microsoft and dotnet back in 2004 there was an extremely high barrier to entry. You had to have a MSDN subscription, (which was $3000-5000 per year).
But today Microsoft has really changed their tune. You can get a free community edition of Visual Studio, you can sign up for the free tier on Azure and even DevOps is free up to a certain number of users.
Windows 10 is more open than ever, dotnet is cross-platform, etc. So what is the barrier to entry like now? I would say it’s about the same as with JavaScript. You have a choice of free IDEs and free hosting.
So now this is where people argue that “JavaScript” is easier to learn. But is it though? I’ve spent a lot of time with both and I have to say that the learning curve with C# might be just a little bit steeper but once you learn the basics you can advance at the same rate as someone learning JavaScript.
One thing that I had forgotten about since I hadn’t done a great deal of dotnet development in almost 5 years was how much the IDE assists you. I can create a Model with 20 properties in about 10 minutes. The prop snippet is your friend.
I never really feel at home in a JavaScript codebase but I dove into a fairly complex ASP.NET backend project recently without having done much in over 5 years and everything was still accessible to me. I still had the muscle memory.
I think one of the Pros (though it could be considered a con by some), is the fact that the C# language itself doesn’t seem to be evolving as rapidly as JavaScript. It’s more “mature” if you will. Maybe that has more to do with the fact that its highly structured.
One of the things that struck me as funny when I came back to dotnet was the fact that if you search online for how to do something the C# code snippets you find are going to be fairly similar. Whereas, with JavaScript you can find 100 posts with 100 different ways to do things.
I think a lot JavaScript development is, “let’s see how clever I can be” instead of, “let’s see how readable and robust I can make this.”
These are my personal opinions and I’m sure this “hit-piece” is going to cause some controversy but I think if you commit to taking a look at the “new” dotnet you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Thanks for reading and that's all y'all.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Tim Myers
Tim Myers | Sciencx (2021-04-09T05:48:22+00:00) Should you pick C# over JS? Maybe.. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2021/04/09/should-you-pick-c-over-js-maybe/
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