Why would you want to use C# if its slower than C++? [closed]

Answer 1

I Would definitely use C#. It is actually average speed, and if you liked java, it's almost exactly the same, as they are both based off C++.

Answer 2

Who exactly is this "bunch of people"? What are they comparing it against?

For the vast majority of things, C++ is not "much faster" than C#. It certainly has benefits in various situations, particularly where you want more deterministic memory handling, but in my experience the bottleneck in most applications isn't in places where C++ would help. As spoulson says, a lot of performance is in the design instead of the exact implementation - and there, it helps to be able to try different designs easily.

Why would we use C# when it's a bit slower than C++? Because it's generally reckoned (i.e. some disagree :) to be a lot easier to develop in without shooting yourself in the foot.

As for what C# can be used for... what do you want to use it for? Unless you want to develop drivers and kernels, it may well be fine for you. (Even OS development has some folks using C#...)

Job opportunities? Loads.

Downsides? Well, .NET itself is only available on Microsoft platforms. There's Mono, but it doesn't have quite the same degree of portability as Java (no doubt another "slow" language according to the same bunch of people).

Answer 3

one big reason to use C# over C++.........look at all those buffer overflow problems that C++ has where people take over your machine because they inject executable code in your strings or memory leaks....garbage collector is quite handy IMHO

Answer 4

Why should it be slow ? Indeed, C# is compiled to 'Intermediate Language', which is JIT'ed at runtime, but this can give you a performance advantage, since the runtime can generate the most optimized for the platform the code is running on ...

Depending on the application that you want to write, the 'speed' of the language will have a minor impact. The performance of your application will mostly be determined by the way you design your application, if you make good uses of the tools / technologies you use , etc ... Sure, C# is not a silver bullet, and there are projects where you shouldn't use it, simply because it is not the right tool for the job, but it will do just fine for most of the business / enterprise app's.

Answer 5

The people you talked to don't know what they are talking about. C# is a very similar language to Java, all told; it has most of the same benefits and drawbacks. The way it all works is pretty similar (Java/C# is compiled into an intermediate language/bytecode that is interpreted or JIT compiled to native code, with various similar optimizations that you don't need to worry about as a programmer). It's used in a lot of the same situations as Java, and is really aimed for the same market. It's moving a lot faster and bringing in a lot of innovation as a language, but it's (in practice) pretty much Windows-only, if that's a concern of yours. The job market is similar. Both are very popular languages.

As for a language to learn, I would suggest something DIFFERENT. You say you know C++ and Java; C# shouldn't be hard to pick up. Potential employers will know this. Try Scala or Python. Both will give you some new perspectives on things (C# not so much), and make you a better programmer by teaching you new ways to think, rather than just adding another tool to your box.

Answer 6

My last company was founded by 5 C++ veterans with 15+ years experience each. They spent over a month building a certain Windows service. One of them found and dabbled in C#. Within a week he'd gotten further than the collective had in their month. Shortly after, they all switched to C#.

Why C# if it may perform slower: what price do you put on that degree of rapid development?