C# Vs. other Web development languages

[Ahmed91za]

just a question what are the advantages that C# as a general purpose programing language has over other web development programming languages such as HTML 5 CSS and so on

[Schol-R-LEA]

OK, let's start off by clearing up a misconception you seem to have. HTML and CSS are not programming languages at all; HTML is a markup language (that is to say, it is used to define the structure of a document), while CSS is a styling language (it is used to define the visual appearance of an HTML document). Together, they define the content, structure, and presentation of a web page. In the absence of some other form of scripting or code generation, they are mostly limited to static layouts, and are more closely related to the Postscript, PDF or RTF document definition markup than to a Turing-complete programming language.

Also, C# itself isn't a web language at all, though it can be used for server-side Web programming, through ASP.Net, the .NET Framework's server-side scripting system (which can use either VB.Net or C#).

Finally, ASP.Net is not an alternative to HTML; rather, it is an enhancement to HTML, in the form of an XML-based extension language that is embedded in the HTML markup and generates HTML code before serving it to the client browser. All the browser sees of an ASP.Net program is the final HTML code it produces.

Even comparing a client-side scripting system such as JavaScript or the (now largely abandoned) Java applet system, is apples to oranges. Those run in the browser itself, on the client system. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and many ASP.Net web pages also use Javascript and its subsidiary technologies (JQuery, AJAX, Node.js, etc.) for client side scripting.

The real comparison is between ASP.Net and other server-side systems, such as PHP, Java servlets (and extensions of them such as Apache Struts), Django, and Ruby on Rails, but truth to tell, most of the answers you'd get about them would be 1% fact and 99% opinion. My own preference is for either Django (which is based on Python), Ruby on Rails (based on Ruby), or Hiccup (based on Clojure), but that's got more to do with my dislike of C# and love of the other languages than any rational reason.

In terms of saleability and job prospects, ASP.Net is a good choice, especially with C# as the coding language (VB.Net seems to be on the way out), but the same could be said for Django and RoR. In any case, experience is the primary factor most employers are looking for today - there aren't many entry-level openings, period, while all the common frameworks are in roughly the same demand with regard to senior positions, so which technology you choose is pretty much irrelevant.

If you prefer one language or framework over the other, then go ahead and use what you like best. Otherwise, try several of them out and see if any of them appeal to you.

[Ahmed91za]

Thanks for the reply, i should have been more specific on what i meant by a language, as for ASP.NET, in comparison to Java i understand
but one of the things that confused me is the difference between the core language Java and Javascript can you tell me the difference? is Javascript based on Java but Oriented toward web development

[Schol-R-LEA]

Desipte their names, Java and JavaScript are completely unrelated languages; in fact, when Netscape originally created JavaScript, they were going to call it LiveScript, but changed the name after Sun announced the release of Java in order to jump on the hype train. While some of the changes to JavaScript in versions 2.0 and later on were inspired by Java, the two of them are not connected in any way aside from the names.

[overwraith]

the advantages that C# as a general purpose programing lang

originally created JavaScript, they were going to call it Live

release of Java in order to jump on the hype train. While so

iginally created JavaScript, they were going to call it LiveScript, but changed the name after Sun announced the release of Java in order to jump on the hype train. While some of the changes to JavaScript in versions 2.0 and later on were inspire

Desipte their names, Java and JavaScript are completely unrelated languages; in fact, when Netscape originally created JavaScript, they were going to call it LiveScript, but changed the name after Sun announced the release of Java in order to jump on the hype train. While some of the changes to JavaScript in versions 2.0 and later on were inspired by Java, the two of them are not connected in any way aside from the names.

I have been telling people this for years (javascript != java), nobody believes me though.

[Schol-R-LEA]

Yeah, I've had that problem myself; a lot of people can't get past the similarity in the names (which was Netscape's whole purpose in calling it that), and superficially, Java code and JavaScript code are vaguely similar, simply because they are both curly-brace languages with object systems that run in web browsers (more on that in a moment). The irony, of course, is that JavaScript is now vastly more important than Java for client-side web development, while Java has mostly moved to into application and server-side roles.

A big part of the association is that Java was touted heavily for the client-side when it first came out; applets were expected to be the killer app for Java. Unfortunately for Sun, applets proved to be a solution looking for a problem. While one of the advantages of applets is that they are a stand-alone program that can be embedded in a web page, with little or no reference to the HTML code, this also proved to be a weakness, as most of the things needed in websites proved to be tightly coupled scripting that works directly on the HTML code itself - precisely the niche JavaScript filled. For various historical reasons, most of the other uses which Java applets were well suited for ended up being filled through Flash and Shockwave instead, or (for Windows-specific uses) were co-opted by ActiveX components (which eventually died off as well, but by then the damage was done for applets). While there are a few applications for which applets are the best solution, they weren't enough to maintain the momentum, and applets ended up as sort of a sideshow for the web as a whole - never completely abandoned or ignored, but never coming close to being the dominant feature they were expected to be.

By the time Oracle bought out Sun, applets were mostly forgotten, but people still thought of Java as a 'web language' - partly because of the conflation of JavaScript with Java.