[Mono-devel-list] ECMA verrsions of C#

[Matthias Kempka]

Hayes, Dennis wrote:
> What one should expect is that version 1.0 code will compile on a version
> 2.0 or 3.0 compiler.
> There is no reason to expect version 2.0 code to compile on a version 1
> compiler.
> One would hope that version 1 libraries would be compatible with version 2
> libraries.
> 

Right, right, I know all that. The thing that bothers me is that in the 
process of learning C# I never heard of versions of the language (except 
that C# 2 will have generics but isn't finished yet, so there is only 
one version..). I am coming from the Java world, where I know exactly 
when I am using a 1.4 compiler, and I don't expect a 1.3 compiler to 
compile 1.4 code.
Of course, Java is not standardized, but non-Sun-Java compilers also 
tell me which version of the language they compile. I couldn't find any 
such thing in the mono faq or the mcs readme or the version string or 
the about information (where I would expect it). This very much 
corroborated my theory of only one version working. Now you tell me, 
actually there are different versions, which is fine, but I can't be 
happy to have to *try* which version a compiler I am currently using 
actually supports.

Maybe you should put this information somewhere where users see it.

Matthias