What is C#?

C# is a general purpose programming object oriented language invented around 1999 or 2000 by Anders Hejlsberg at Microsoft and part of the .NET initiative and later approved as a standard by ECMA and ISO. Anders Hejlsberg leads development of the C# language, which has a procedural, object-oriented syntax based on C++ and includes aspects of several other programming languages (most notably Delphi and Java) with a particular emphasis on simplification. It is very similar to Java in its syntax with a major difference being that all variable types are descended from a common ancestor class.

The purpose of C# is to precisely define a series of operations that a computer can perform to accomplish a task. Most of these operations involve manipulating numbers and text, but anything that the computer can physically do can be programmed in C#. Computers have no intelligence- they have to be told exactly what to do and this is defined by the programming language you use.

The ECMA standard lists these design goals for C#:

• C# is intended to be a simple, modern, general-purpose, object-oriented programming language.
• Because software robustness, durability and programmer productivity are important, the language should include strong type checking, array bounds checking, detection of attempts to use uninitialized variables, source code portability, and automatic garbage collection.
• The language is intended for use in developing software components that can take advantage of distributed environments.
• Programmer portability is very important, especially for those programmers already familiar with C and C++.
• Support for internationalization is very important.
• C# is intended to be suitable for writing applications for both hosted and embedded systems, ranging from the very large that use sophisticated operating systems, down to the very small having dedicated functions.
• Although C# applications are intended to be economical with regards to memory and processing power requirements, the language was not intended to compete directly on performance and size with C or assembly language.

What Can a C# Program Do?

Typical programming tasks includes putting data into a database or pulling it out, displaying high speed graphics in a game or video, controlling electronic devices attached to the PC or even playing music and/or sound effects. You can even write software to generate music or help you compose.

Some developers believe that C# is too slow for games, because it is interpreted. However the .NET runtime compiles the interpreted code (called CIL) the first time it is run.

Article from wikipedia and about.com