So I finally got my copy of Visual C# .Net last week and started playing around with it. As a Java programmer, it was fairly easy to pick up the basic idea to get a simple program working. A lot of the syntax for C# is a mix of C, C++, and Java, all of which I’ve worked with previously.

I’m very impressed with the bringing along of powerful C++ functionality such as operator overrides, which I sorely missed when using Java. I’m not so thrilled at Microsoft’s insistance on using Pascal case for everything as I much prefer the Java convention of Pascal case for classes and camel case for everything else. I’ll get used to it, I just find it annoying.

I’m a bit disappointed in the Visual Studio .Net C# editor. After using Eclipse for Java development, Visual Studio falls far short of my expectations. The code completion and code insight is shaky at best and there doesn’t seem to be any background compiling for instant feedback as to what will and won’t work.

So I guess my initial reaction is that the language itself is cool, but the tools built around it need some work.