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Comment by codeglide | Hacker News Reader

My name is Mark Giuliani and I am one of the developers behind X#.

I do agree that the language is verbose at the moment, originally it was designed to be programmed visually but we kept extending it to the level where it is now. In less than 3 months we are releasing a new version of X# that will include a C-like or Java-like syntax. So in addition to doing > you would do if( expr ) { ... }.

For those who think X# is a joke, please take a look at http://www.snapcrm.com which is a CRM and Collaboration Suite far superior to all open source CRMs and it was coded entirely using X# in 4 months. Also, take a look at Fusion (http://fusion.codeglide.com) which is a Data Integration Platform superior to anything available in the market today -- coded in 5 months.

Try doing this in other languages!

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I'm sorry, Mark, but there's a ton of open-source CRM software written over the weekend and published in a matter of days.

As a matter of fact, if you'll go through the backlogs here at Hacker News you'll see a large number of "Game/Site/Tool/Language Written, Released in 3 days!" stories by members of this very community... in languages from C# to Lisp to Java to C and even ASM.

I agree, but they don't have the number of features that we have.

Really now? and how hard would that be for anyone who is proficient in their own language to implement those so called features you boast about? Feature set alone is a pretty weak argument imho.

> "[...] take a look at http://www.snapcrm.com which is a CRM and Collaboration Suite far superior to all open source CRMs and it was coded entirely using X# in 4 months."

How about that hubris, then?

And the power doesn't stop there, with XSLT you have a powerful macro system too!

Good point. Hey, aren't Lisp s-expressions just a less powerful form of XML nested structures? I think Lisp should be re-written in XML. So this:

   (defun factorial (n)
      (return (if (< n 2) 1
                  (factorial (-1 n)))))

Would become:

   <!DOCTYPE xmllisp>
   <program>
      <function name="factorial">
         <parameters>n</parameters>
         <return>
            <if><condition>n &lt 2</condition>
               <iftrue>1</iftrue>
               <iffalse>
                  <functionCall name="factorial">n - 1</functionCall>
               </iffalse>
            </if>
         </return>
      </function>
   </program>

Which I think we can all agree makes much more sense.

Bah! 5 months? Rails has an acts_as_crm plugin, I could've been done in 5 seconds. Next! :P

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