[MUD-Dev] C# vs. LPC

[Felix A. Croes]

Travis Casey <efindel at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Tuesday, June 27, 2000, 12:18:02 PM, Christopher Allen <ChristopherA at skotos.net> wrote:
>
> > I was wondering if there were any of you c language experts who could 
> > compare and contrast Microsoft's new C# (cee-sharp) language with
> > LPC.
>
> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/nextgen/technology/csharpintro.asp
>
> > How different are they? How alike? Any worthy things in LPC that should
> > be in C#, or worthy things in C# that make sense for LCP?
>
> I'll take a quick shot at it.  Note that while I know LPC quite well,
> all I know about C# is what I read on that page and in the two
> documents that are downloadable from that page.

>From what followed, I assume that the LPC dialect which you are most
familiar with is the MudOS one.  (I make this point because I am
cross-posting my response to the DGD mailing list, where Christopher's
original posting also went.)


>[...]
> C# provides error handling through both throw and try mechanisms; the
> versions of LPC that I know of have only throw, and have a global
> catch.  The C# info I have doesn't mention whether catches are global
> or local.

C# has exception handling in the Java/C++ style, LPC's support for
catching errors is rudimentary only.  Whether the more advanced
style is also an improvement is perhaps a matter of taste.  Personally,
I <hate> having to hunt through multiple catches to find out where
the flow of control went.


>[...]
> Where LPC uses either function pointers or closures, C# has "delegate"
> classes.  Since I've never worked with delegate classes, I can't
> comment on any differences in functionality or ease of use.

C#'s delegate classes implement ordinary C-style function pointers.


> C# provides "versioning" support -- which, from what I can see,
> basically means merely that you have to explicitly say that you want
> to override inherited methods, variables, etc.  I don't see this as
> likely to be a problem in a typical mud environment.

When I first saw this mentioned in the doc, my heart made a little
leap -- I was hoping for something that would improve on Java's
failure to deal with the replacement of class code, without a cold
boot of the entire runtime system.  Alas, I was disappointed.


> It also provides namespaces, which allow programmers to have multiple
> namespaces and specify which they are using.  Again, I don't see this
> as likely to be a problem in a typical mud, especially when using LPC.
> (You can't directly reference variables in other objects, so each
> object already has its own namespace.)

Interestingly, this is one of the things that make LPC such an easy
language to work with.


>[...]
> Both languages allow multiple inheritance.  C# also has the idea of
> interfaces, as in Java, and allows objects to implement multiple
> interfaces.

LPC has multiple inheritance.  C# has only single inheritance.


>[...]
> Overall, they both seem to be headed in the same direction -- towards
> a more object-oriented and "user-friendly" version of C.  If you're
> building a mud, you might want the mud-oriented features of an LPC
> implementation -- on the other hand, if you don't like how LPC
> implementations handle those, you may not.

DGD's dialect of LPC is definitely not headed towards a user-friendly
version of C.  I very much doubt whether any other LPC dialect is,
either.  I rather think C is where LPC started, and from which it is
moving further and further away.

Regards,
Felix Croes



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