What is C#?

Have you heard of C# (pronounced See-Sharp)? It would not be unusual if you didn't know a lot about the language. Released to the public in June 2000, C# has not been around for very long.

C# is a new language created by Microsoft and submitted to the ECMA for standardization. This new language was created by a team of people at Microsoft led by Anders Hejlsberg . Interestingly, Hejlsberg is a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer who has created other products and languages, including Borland Turbo C++ and Borland Delphi. With C#, they focused on taking what was right about existing languages and adding improvements to make something better.

C# is a powerful and flexible programming language. Like all programming languages, it can be used to create a variety of applications. Your potential with C# is limited only by your imagination. The language does not place constraints on what you can do. C# has already been used for projects as diverse as dynamic Web sites, development tools, and even compilers.

C# was created as an object-oriented programming (OOP) language. Other programming languages include object-oriented features, but very few are fully object-oriented. In my book you can learn how C# compares to some of these other programming languages. My book also covers what it means to use an object-oriented language as well as the details of doing object-oriented programming with C#.