If you were able to attend this session at PDC or Tech-Ed EMEA Developers, you were presented with a first class presentation of the future of C#, presented, respectively, by Anders Hejlsberg and Mads Torgersen.
For the near future (.NET 4.0) C# will have:
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Dynamically Typed Objects
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Optional and Named Parameters
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Improved COM Interoperability
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Co- and Contra-variance
A preview of the compiler as a service was shown, but that’s not for the .NET 4.0 / Visual Studio 2010 timeframe. Probably, not even for the next.
Starting with .NET 4.0, C# and Visual Basic will converge in terms of features and follow a path of co-evolution going into the future.
No! That doesn’t mean that XML literals will be in C# in a foreseeable future. What that means is that the above list also applies to Visual Basic.
Talking of Visual Basic evolution, the _ line continuation character has been retired. If you have any use for the underscore, please visit http://www.unemployedunderscores.com/.
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Filed under: .NET, C#, Microsoft, MSDN, VisualStudio, TechEd, PDC, TechEd2008, VisualBasic, PDC2008, VisualStudio2010