said by PetePuma :

C and C++ will be around a long while, but they are becoming a bit more specialized for applications where performance or footprint is tantamount.

said by usa2k :

I've been conditioned by those I've known, that MS is the evil empire - so why buy into their system and feed it further?

said by Steve :

Whatever you think of Microsoft, C# is a kick-ass language surrounded by a tremendous library environment - it's exceptionally rich (hey, extension methods alone are worth the cost of admission).

And once you use LINQ you won't ever again say that Microsoft has never innovated.

Steve — C programmer since 1981, C++ since 1990, C# since 2005

said by Gomez :

Steve doing C#?..

said by Steve :

The difference between C# and Java is that Java sucks

said by Steve :

The difference between C# and Java is that Java sucks

said by nil :

Otherwise, there's always cobol.

said by Steve :

I prefer the object-oriented version: ADD ONE TO COBOL

said by drew :

My apologies -- even after a quick re-read, I'm not seeing anything about new languages for the desktop. Only web techs.

@Gomez: I respect that the web is evolving VERY rapidly. We've had conversations about this and you've told me to get started on symfony, yesterday so to speak.

I'm personally concerned that there's too much movement towards the web. I can speak in detail about the problem due to experience in a product we're working right now.

said by drew :

I *hate* web browsers though. Absolutely hate them.

None of them work as they should, there's no standardization.

Form design on a desktop app is not only significantly easier, it's far simpler to handle input from. Any time you design a web app, no matter if it's standards compliant or not, there's at LEAST one of the browsers you have to add in some kind of hack for.

I don't think my head's stuck in a box -- I'm open to new ideas. I'm just talking from a very low skill programmer's [insert word here for what I really am] perspective but mostly from a user's.

The only thing I've seen from a web technology that's really made me go "Whoa..." was Flex. Even then, it's not *that* cool.

said by drew :

Am I not a consumer?

said by drew :

But even the web 2.0 sites have desktop utilities that make the web app simply that much better.

Take TweetDeck as an example. While it's done in Adobe AIR, it's an app I run from the desktop and I don't browse to in a web browser. It consolidates many pages worth of Twitter AND facebook data for easy viewing.

I don't dismiss the viability of SAS (software as a service if I understand correctly) and its business model, I just don't think, nor do I want, web applications to be it.

Browsers are the bottleneck there and until Microsoft either gets off the stage and the WebKit guys join up with Mozilla and Opera dies or comes up with the "killer app" browser, I don't think we'll see the end of the consumer desktop application.

Maybe when the technology is there so I don't have to dick with things like CSS (All of you please tell me how on earth you like CSS after doing any kind of Windows or GTK (?) forms based development) to make a web app decent... I'm playing around with Symfony and doing their Jobeet "advent" calendar, but they completely disregard the style-side, because that's out of scope! While serious enterprise class desktop developers often, from my understanding, usually hook into forms and UIs created by real designers, the non-enterprise developers can still do a fantastic job without the same kind of bullshitting you have to do on the web.

I don't think the web technologies are there yet. That's all I'm saying.

said by Gomez :

Any application that has human interaction can and should be web-based..

said by drew :

Here's my question: if Java and C# are going away for everything but desktop business, what's there for desktop consumer?

I say that because computing in the cloud, so far, sucks. Google Apps is by far the most prevalent and well known IMO, yet even in Chrome, which should be the *best* performer for Google Apps, it's dog slow. What happens when I want to work on a letter to grandma when I'm not able to get online?

said by usa2k :

I switched to another book I had - "Learn C++ in 24 Hours". It was crafted with 24 chapters, and I loved it this time around. I managed to progress to chapter 20 before feeling a heavy weight of the subject.

said by djrobx :

C# has a serial port class, but it's too latent to talk to my DirecTV receiver.

said by Bobcat :

So C# on a 2 GHz Pentium is too slow to do what a 2 MHz 8080 could do with assembly or Basic?

said by Bobcat :

What are these kids learning in school now a days?

said by cowboyro :

Don't forget that the newer compilers include a sh1tload of buffer and exception checks, slowing down the code. Also making the code too much object-oriented can cause slowdowns (objects that get created and destroyed way too frequently). There must be a balance between code readability and execution speed, but too many programmers just go by "get a faster machine". My programming started with BASIC and Z80/I8080 assembly though...

said by usa2k :

I've been conditioned by those I've known, that MS is the evil empire - so why buy into their system and feed it further? Stay open source, cross platform in my personal education. Seek good programming tools that will promote a level playing field.

I had thought that the LINUX camp would still be evolving C++.