Navigating Breaking Changes in C# and Language Selection at Microsoft

12min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Exploring the challenges of breaking changes in C# and the meticulous process of maintaining compatibility while advancing the language. Insight into Microsoft's decision-making process for language selection based on existing investments and organizational culture.

Language and compiler design are fundamental aspects of computer science. High-level languages are how most developers interact with computers, so it’s hard to overstate the significance of compiler engineering or the aesthetics of language syntax.

C# is a general-purpose high-level language that was created by Anders Hejlsberg at Microsoft in 2000, and was open-sourced in 2014.

Jared Parsons is the Principal Developer Lead on the C# Language Team at Microsoft, where he’s worked for 20 years. He joins the show to talk about how the C# compiler is developed, the compiler as an API, language creation as an art, the experience of open-sourcing C#, and much more.

Sean’s been an academic, startup founder, and Googler. He has published works covering a wide range of topics from information visualization to quantum computing. Currently, Sean is Head of Marketing and Developer Relations at Skyflow and host of the podcast Partially Redacted, a podcast about privacy and security engineering. You can connect with Sean on Twitter @seanfalconer .