What Makes a Language?

[MyndFyre]

No, really?

Coming from .NET, I think that the language lines have been greatly blurred.  It's way cool that .NET shares its class library among whatever languages consume it, but is it really?

Here's what I'm getting at.

I can see that there are three major distinctions made across languages:

1.) Keywords
2.) Syntax
3.) Class Libraries

By eliminating the distinction of class libraries from the .NET languages, you effectively blur the line.  Take a look at these code examples:

C#

Code Select Expand


public enum Colors {
Red,
Green,
Blue,
Black
}

private Colors m_ecClr;
public Colors MyColor {
 get {
   return m_ecClr;
 }
 set {
   m_ecClr = value;
 }
}


VB .NET:

Code Select Expand


Public Enum Colors
Red,
Green,
Blue,
Black
End Enum

Private m_ecClr As Colors
Public Property MyColor As Colors
 Get
   return m_ecClr
 End Get
 Set(ByVal value As Colors)
   m_ecClr = value
 End Set
End Property


J# (just an example)

Code Select Expand


public enum Colors {
Red,
Green,
Blue,
Black
}

private Colors m_ecClr;
/*@property*/
public Colors get_MyColor() {
 return m_ecClr;
}
/*@property*/
public void set_MyColor(Colors value) {
 m_ecClr = value;
}


Is it just me, or is it just all the same?

:/

[hismajesty]

Yea, that's why programming in my opinion is just learning the syntax.

For example, last night Tuberload, Zorm, Newby, Eibro, Darkness[e1], and me were playing around on topcoder.com doing some practice stuff. After I submitted mine I decided to port somebody elses from Java to VB.Net. The code was pretty much the same with the exception of writing the for loop differently/ other minor syntax things.

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

Syntax vs class libraries

C#, VB.NET, Java, Jython vs .NET Platform, Java Platform

What you're talking about is language vs platform.