Debate - Which is better? C# or Java?

Debate - Which is better? C# or Java?

• XWVUE

  .NET (C#) all the way baby. That's all im saying :-) its taken the world by storm in the last 3 years especially, and now in upcoming Vista with .NET 3.0. It's pretty much industry standard now, and I am personally glad it is
  
  

• Dario Galvani

  I'm all for C#, in my opinion it just makes more sense, and it's a lot more "integral" than Java.

  If you want to program C#, there is one way to go, get Visual Studio, if you want it for free, get C# Express. Period.

  If you want to program Java, you've got to choose from a variety of IDEs, SDKs, runtimes, and plugins. If you pick wrong, it doesn't work together well, and you're screwed. Of course this also makes documentation a lot less handy. In C#, you've got MSDN library, it's all there, IDE doc, lang doc, framework doc. For Java, you'll have a couple of docs regarding IDE, language, runtime, plugins, extensions, etc.

  Also, Java programs with a UI that can be used like windows programs are the exception.

  And with the OS that you're programming for coming from the people who developed it, you're guaranteed that the docs are high quality, up to date, and that it's gonna work.

  All in all, C# feels like a compact, working package, where everything you need is right there, and it just works, while Java seems like a loose collection of command line tools, documents and and source code files that aren't even easy to find and install sometimes.

  Don't get me wrong, the idea of open source is a good one, but sometimes it's better to get all the tools from one place.

  
  

• jdarias

  C# is better...but i'm not going to say why.

  Ok, I'm kidding...I like both lang's, but C# for the .NET framework over the Java JVM.

  
  
  

• Colin R

  I think the only real advantage that Java has is that it is cross platform. It can work on Linux, Windows, Max OSX, etc.
  
  While there are strides being made at making C# and .net framework cross platform, it's still in the early stages.
  
  Other than that, I think the two are very similar. I'm sure there are some things that Java does better than C# and vice versa.
  
  
  
  

• Y-SW

  I made a point to my boss today that I think in a lot of ways the whole Java vs C# debate is a real red herring.  What I see happening (at least in Australia) is that Java and .NET basically share the marketplace and Java seems to compete more with older legacy systems such as Cobol rather than directly competing with .NET.I think the debate in some ways is more should you code in C#, ASP.NET or code in PHP or should you just learn both and have more marketable skills.Good blog post too, I hear exactly what you are saying.  I too saw the thing that the Java engineers put up about using Apache Derby as an embedded Applet database and thought that looks great.  After a month of trying to get it working I gave up fired up mono and am developing the same (hobby) application in C# using Gtk.One thing I would add to the debate is that if you look at XML processing for example, with C# you install the .NET framework, copy a code sample from the ms site and off you go, knowing you are using best practice for .net using XML almost straightaway.  Java, I am still trying to get it working on XML.
  
• Debate - Which is better? C# or Java?