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I am developing my first ASP.NET MVC application and I beleive that Script# can help me a lot. But it cannot find the resource necessary to support my development.

I could not find The codeplex site; There is only one manual, which is very good, but it is not enough; I could find very few tutorials; I know that Script# was used to develop ASP.NET MVC scripts and that the source of MVC distributes the library.

But it seems that it is used only internally in Microsoft.

Where can I find other resources???

Do you really think that Script# will be continued and new versions will be deployed and it should be used by third-party projetcs ???

Thanks in advance

Mauricio Scheffer
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mvbaffa
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11 Answers11

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Don't be afraid of Javascript, it's a beautiful and powerful language. And with frameworks like jQuery, Prototype and Dojo, DOM manipulation and AJAX are greatly simplified and cross-browser issues are mostly history.

About Script#, I agree with this answer by mcintyre321. Last release over a year ago + closed source = no go for me.

UPDATE Jan/2010: there have been new Script# releases since the original writing of this answer. It's still closed-source but the author mentions open sourcing it after 1.0

UPDATE May 2011: Script# is now open source.

Community
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Mauricio Scheffer
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    IMHO Javascript is the way to go. See also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/788933/what-advantages-can-scriptsharp-bring-to-my-tool-kit – Mauricio Scheffer Oct 16 '09 at 17:16
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    Please note, there was a new release done just recently. the project is not dead :-) – Joel Martinez Nov 30 '09 at 12:50
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    Update: NikhilK in Mix11 has moved this project over to GitHub. Definitely a plus. – Narmatha Balasundaram Apr 21 '11 at 19:02
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    Seems like only a part of project was made open-source, namely libraries. Script# compiler is still closed source. – thorn0 May 23 '11 at 11:18
  • "it's a beautiful and powerful language" -- Err no. – zezba9000 Oct 08 '13 at 02:15
  • @zezba9000 : "Err no" doesn't really mean anything, but I'll still venture an answer. For one, beauty is subjective. Also, beauty and power depend on what you compare it against. See http://blog.fogus.me/2013/06/04/fun-js-bilby/ for a sample of the power of JS. – Mauricio Scheffer Oct 08 '13 at 06:28
  • "beauty is subjective" -- True, so i'll clarify. Javascript is a horrible lang for game devs. Because its lacking strong types, Value types, custom operators ect.. I would say look at TypeScript vs JavaScript. I personally will end up using Script# to port a game to WebGL as I use C# for the base engine, but after looking at TypeScript for JavaScript developers this looks like what JavaScript should have been closer too years ago... still lacking but closer. – zezba9000 Oct 09 '13 at 18:29
  • @zezba9000 So your concerns are about lack of types. I also prefer typed languages, but beauty and power have little to do with types. – Mauricio Scheffer Oct 09 '13 at 19:29
  • Custom operators and value types are powerful and very useful for things like UI as well, not just games. There is also power features missing like unsafe code(this can be sandboxed). "beauty" does have to do with types as its a much more clean an elegant approach to large code bases. C# has the option of both strong and dynamic types, JavaScript does not... that is beauty in my mind. Giving the power of both with ease. – zezba9000 Oct 09 '13 at 19:53
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In short, my answer is: if you like powerful IDEs that run on Windows, OOD and C#, use ScriptSharp. It is more maintainable and structured, and demonstrably stable enough to use on serious projects. It can also be easily extended, as illustrated below and by other projects.

Since this is yet another Google indexed thread where people refer to Script# and jQuery as mutually exclusive I just wanted to point out some people are merging these two worlds, and in my case unleashing a lot of power by doing so. I'm offering a completely free and reusable library to access jQuery 1.4 from Script# projects, and full source code for the solution that generates it (almost exclusively from jQuery's own API documentation file):

http://www.christophercrooker.com/visual-studio-2010-rc-custom-tool-for-code-generation-and-jquery14-with-intellisense-for-scriptsharp

Christopher Crooker
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IMHO Script# fits well for large projects only, with really "rich" web client. Participating in such kind of project, I could only say that Script# helped us much. josephhemingway's remark about strongly typed is 100% true for such case. Also it allowed us to introduce new .NET developers without any JS background quickly. Assuming Nikhil Kothari's plans to open-source it in the summer 2008, we even decompiled (don't tell anybody! it's illegal) it and introduced generics, operators overloads, various bug fixes, etc.

BUT. Then Script# support faded away. Project on CodePlex with discussions and issue tracking was closed (interesting that parts of framework were published there shortly before). No updates, no future plans, no explanations. After such thing I'd consider Script# only after it goes open source to give the community ability to support it. E.g. on CodePlex.

Val
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    It is open sourced now on github. – Andrew Harry Nov 05 '11 at 22:16
  • Out of curiosity, are you still using Script# and considering donating those changes to the community now it's on github? – Bart Verkoeijen Dec 11 '11 at 07:57
  • No, personally I'm not, since JS support in Visual Studio and in general have matured greatly, and the current project has slightly less complex client. Currently, Script#'s core C# to JS translator tools are not open sourced (they are published binary in ScriptSharp.dll), so I can't put those things on github, but I'll definitely try when (or if) their source code appear. – Val May 02 '12 at 22:03
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Short answer NO. Wait for TypeScript.

Script# is really cool, but MS decided not to support it at all. The reason for that turns out to be that they were working on a better version of that - TypeScript (http://www.typescriptlang.org/) It adds support for everything you need in a static language (intellisense, type checking, interfaces, classes etc.), but still looks very much like JS, and more importantly - confirms to the upcoming ECMA Script 6 standard. (unlike Script# or google's Dart)

Elad Katz
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I use Script#, I think it is great. You can use it with any framework, jQuery, dojo whatever, you would however have to wrap the framework, this could be a big job...

It's only benefit as I see it is that it allows you to develop javascript in a strongly typed environment. I think this is a HUGE benefit. I refuse to develop in weakly typed languages as maintenance is a nightmare.

If however you like to work in a weakly typed language then you wont need Script#.

josephhemingway
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Like the others have I would recommend some JavaScript (namely jQuery). Should you wish to continue with Script#, Nikhil Kothari's blog may be a good resource for you. http://www.nikhilk.net/ScriptSharpIntro.aspx -- That being said, I think you'll find that you are more productive with jQuery. There is a large database of community written plugins so you wouldn't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel on everything you want to do. jQuery plugins instead of ASP.NET Controls

Ryan Lanciaux
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Wow Val you got generics to work in it, I'm impressed, was it hard? Generics support would be great, so would method and operator overloading. josephhemingway

The whole point is that ScriptSharp's parser supports full C# 2.0 syntax. The only thing needed is to generate the proper JS. Not much work, considering JS dynamic nature. Generics would act as Java-style ones, i.e. no generation for each closed type argument set, just one class.

Are you sure that it is illegal to decompile it, I will have to have a look to see if it is the terms of use. josephhemingway

Yep, it's illegal. EULA showed in setup clearly mentions that.

Val
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A release went out today, so it is good to see that it is still active.

Regardless of the previous lack of updates and that it not been open sourced I would still use it over plain js. You can stop using Script# at any time and more forward with the 'compiled' js if you don't like it.

I agree with you Val though that it really only fits large js based projects. I don't think you would get much benefit out of using it to perform basic page functionality like validate form input etc. It probably wouldn't be worth setting it up.

If however you are heavily using javascript and need to replicate OOP then I think it is a must. Things like refactoring becomes so easy, with plain js I would never refactor because it was just too hard to implement, over time my code became a mess.

Wow Val you got generics to work in it, I'm impressed, was it hard? Generics support would be great, so would method and operator overloading. Are you sure that it is illegal to decompile it, I will have to have a look to see if it is the terms of use.

josephhemingway
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The other advantage of using ScriptSharp that no one has mentioned is that if you need to interact with C# (using AJAX/REST/SOAP) you can use the same class definitions in both places and be sure that you have the interface defined properly, because it's the same source file! I have tried to use logic in shared source files with minimal success due to the way ScriptSharp's corelib is not 100% compatible with the C# corelib. But it works great for data file definitions.

Batzerto
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Also I would like to add that you certainly should use ScripSharp when you are planning to develop multiplatform projects. For example, at present time I write my image processing library code for .NET, JavaScript (ScriptSharp), Android (Mono) platforms on C#. Also I am planning to port my code on iOS (Mono) and Windows Phone in the future. And I think it's great code reusing and developer time minimization!

Ivan Kochurkin
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I am using jQuery. It is really good. But I beleive that It is more confortable to me to work with C#. Even if it is a subset.

mvbaffa
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