Before I begin, I want to make perfectly clear that I consider Microsoft to be one of the better software development houses in the US. The Microsoft Office Suite is a thing of beauty. The seamless connections between each component (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) imply a craftsmanship that could only have been fashioned by superior software architects, designers, and implementers.

For an organization that has done so much to improve the development environment, Microsoft certainly deserves credit. However, as the organization that has confused the development environment, Microsoft deserves censure.

When I first encountered Microsoft Visual Studio, I was enthralled. It was Version 2, but it contained almost all of the features that I needed for conventional and real-time programming. I produced code for the Automated Flight Operations Center (AFOC) as rapidly as I had ever written software before. The code was C and was heavily dependent on the Win32 API. Microsoft did make one very serious mistake - they changed the version from 2 to 4, without warning. This, in turn, caused a three week delay in development due to the extensive changes made to the GUI. Admittedly, the changes improved Visual Studio, but the price was high. Happily, the Version 4 to 6 revision was not as severe a modification to the GUI as was the 2 to 4 revision. All in all I could live with Version 6. Looking back, the unexpected upgrade from Version 2 to Version 4 signaled a policy at Microsoft that continues to this day.

I continued to use Visual Studio for the next three projects. However, it was becoming apparent that C was being overtaken in popularity by Visual Basic and a new language named "C#." Because I needed to remain technically current to remain technically competent, I decided to teach myself the C# language. I used Jesse Liberty's book Programming C# (1st Edition). The going was somewhat more difficult than usual since not only did I need to learn the language's syntax and semantics, but I also had to contend with object orientation. However, within six months I was comfortable with the language.

The opportunity to hone my C# skills came when I accepted the architect/lead developer position for a US Army project. I found C# to be a definite advantage over coding HTML and Javascript. However, that view began to change when Microsoft delivered more and more versions of the language and its supporting frameworks.

For the past year, I have been giving some thought to Microsoft's incessant releases of .Net Frameworks and "upgrades" to the C# language. I fear that Microsoft is not being driven by "what is best" for the programming community nor for the US.¹

What is troubling about the releases are:

• A well-designed compiler does not go through the types of change that C# has gone through.
• It appears that Microsoft is "holding-back" language features for future releases.

During the last decade and one-half, Microsoft has made the following releases to the Framework (and by extension the C# language) and to the Visual Studio IDE.

Version	Visual Studio
4.6.2	2015
4.6.1	2015
4.5.2	2013
4.5.1	2013
4.6	2015
4.5	2012
4	2010
3.5	2008
3.0	2005
2.0	2005
1.1	2003
1.0	VS .NET

The changes made to the IDE are insignificant when compared to the changes in the language. Most disturbing is Microsoft touting new releases as if they were something to be appreciated.

In the late 1970's, I was a member of the X3J9 Pascal Technical Committee . When we first started our work, the X3 Director visited and outlined X3's expectations:

• Produce an unambiguous and machine independent definition of the programming language Pascal
• Expect the effort to take three years
• Do not expect to make lexical, syntactic, or semantic changes to the language for about five years after the standard is released.

Machine independence does not exist for C#. It works in Windows. No other. I object to the ANS rubber-stamping of the C# programming language standard. US approval should be withheld pending action by a technical committee. I cannot imagine the prior X3 Director's distress at the "standardization" of C#.

As a programmer, I need time to become familiar with a programming language. I need a stable language that allows me to do what I need to do, not what some compiler writer thinks that I need to do. I need a mature language that is defined following programming language design principles.

What I find in C# is instability and immaturity. Features are added apparently at the whim of Microsoft. This causes programmer instability in that the programmer must constantly struggle to keep up with the language implementation. This indicates immaturity in the language as well as its designer.

¹ For those of you who think that national security is not an issue, consider what would happen if Microsoft suddenly went away (something that is inevitable) or if its products were compromised. The C# language is so large that hiding malicious code within the compiler is a relatively simple thing to do. The results would be devastating. A large number of US Government agencies and companies depend upon C# code. If the switch was thrown, most web sites and possibly critical control software would cease to function. To me, that's scary.