June 26, 2000

C# programming language announced

MicrosoftThe software giant behind Windows, Office, Azure, and Xbox — founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. announced C# alongside the .NET vision at Forum 2000 as a modern managed language for Windows and web services.

What it was for

C Sharp (programming language)C# is MicrosoftThe software giant behind Windows, Office, Azure, and Xbox — founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.'s main language for .NET — garbage-collected, type-safe, C-like syntax. Used for Windows desktop apps (WPF/WinForms), ASP.NETMicrosoft's framework for building web applications and APIs on the .NET platform. websites and APIs, Unity game development, and enterprise services. Example: a line-of-business app talking to SQLStructured Query Language — the standard language for querying relational databases. Server, or a cross-platform game in Unity.

People

  • Anders Hejlsbergcreator

Companies

  • Microsoft

Why it's here

C# became the primary language of .NET and a major enterprise and game-dev (Unity) platform.

Why it mattered

It combined C++-familiar syntax with garbage collectionAutomatic memory management that frees unused objects — programmers need not track every allocation manually. and a unified type system for the CLRCommon Language Runtime — the virtual machine that executes .NET assemblies and manages memory..

What it solved

MicrosoftThe software giant behind Windows, Office, Azure, and Xbox — founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. needed a flagship managed language for XMLExtensible Markup Language — a markup format for structured documents and data exchange. web services and safer Windows development.

Media

  • C Sharp (programming language)
    ImageC Sharp (programming language)

    Microsoft, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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