Java vs .Net Languages

[Torsten Oppermann]

Hello Guys,

im wondering where i should put my focus on in the Future. I have Java Experience, but no Guru yet

Now i was asking myself, should i get real good at Java (especially EE) or should i start (and certify myself) with C#.net ? Im concerned about the future of Java, since .net is slowly becoming to be cross plattform as well. Other than that the Visual Studio XAML Gui development is just awesome and i cant see Java compete with it in the Future, regarding rich Client development.

What is your opinion on that ? Will Java become #2 after .net or even worse ? I dont want to learn Java for 3 years just to discover that i wont get a job anymore

Thank you in advance

[Pat Farrell]

This really belongs in Meaningless Driven, or perhaps a jobs section.

Java is the preferred development language for Android devices. IMHO, Android devices are the future, not desktops. I expect that the Apple iOS platforms (which do NOT use Java) will be very popular and very profitable, but only a niche player, like a premium brand of cars.

The .NET languages are fine if you want to be stuck in the Microsoft Windows world. I see no future in that. Microsoft has not done anything interesting in the past decade. There is a tiny chance that Windows Phone 7 will be good enough that it can fight with Palm and Symbian and WebOS for third place, behind Android and IOS. But there is no chance that it, or even Windows Phone 8, will be massively popular and profitable in the next couple of years.

Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.

[Jan de Boer]

Torsten, I think you should learn language independent things. That is what I am trying to do, since I did C++, Delphi, Java, Visual Basic, C#.

Since I am not certain in which thing I will program next year, I can get fired, the company can get bankrupted, perhaps everything ends in 2012 like the Maya calender says....

I am learning:

Design Patterns, Algoritms
general SQL query logic
Regex
Soft Skills like project management

Got a book advice question in another section about it even. May-be take a look there if you;d like my idea.

[Torsten Oppermann]

Java is the preferred development language for Android devices. IMHO, Android devices are the future, not desktops. I expect that the Apple iOS platforms (which do NOT use Java) will be very popular and very profitable, but only a niche player, like a premium brand of cars.

I disagree. There will always be a need for Desktop and Server Applications and i believe the whole Smartphone hype will slow down again. There is already .Net available on Android as well, Mono Project

The .NET languages are fine if you want to be stuck in the Microsoft Windows world.

again Mono Project

I see no future in that. Microsoft has not done anything interesting in the past decade

This is a matter of perspective. But for serious IT-Business this is definately NOT true

There is a tiny chance that Windows Phone 7 will be good enough that it can fight with Palm and Symbian and WebOS for third place, behind Android and IOS. But there is no chance that it, or even Windows Phone 8, will be massively popular and profitable in the next couple of years.

Do you really think someday there will be nothing but smartphones ?

Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.

I agree

[Torsten Oppermann]

Thank you Jan, you are 100% right !

Its just sad that many companies want you to have knowledge in dozens of Frameworks, some which you never even heard of

[Jesper de Jong]

Torsten Oppermann wrote:Im concerned about the future of Java, since .net is slowly becoming to be cross plattform as well.

You mean because of the Mono project? Microsoft certainly has no interest at all to make .NET work on any other operating system than Microsoft Windows, and while Mono (developed by an independent group who doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft) is becoming better and better I don't think it is a serious alternative to the "real" .NET for server-side business applications.

Torsten Oppermann wrote:Other than that the Visual Studio XAML Gui development is just awesome and i cant see Java compete with it in the Future, regarding rich Client development.

Java has never been hugely successful in the area of rich client development; Java's great success is in server-side software. Oracle is still trying with JavaFX (2.0 beta has just been released) but it remains to be seen if it's ever going to be really successful.

Torsten Oppermann wrote:What is your opinion on that ? Will Java become #2 after .net or even worse ? I dont want to learn Java for 3 years just to discover that i wont get a job anymore

Java will continue to exist and thrive for many years to come. Thousands and thousands of companies all around the world have millions and millions of lines of code written in Java. Oracle and many other big companies have invested very deeply into Java. The Java community is very much alive (go to conferences and you'll notice that clearly). And even if Java would not be the #1 programming language anymore, would that be a problem? Even COBOL programmers are in high demand and get paid very well, precisely because there aren't so many left and many companies still are dependent on systems written in COBOL. If you can't find a job anymore in 3 years then it will not be because Java has suddenly disappeared.

[Torsten Oppermann]

Thank you for your insight Jesper, really appreciate it

[Pat Farrell]

Torsten Oppermann wrote:I disagree. There will always be a need for Desktop and Server Applications and i believe the whole Smartphone hype will slow down again. There is already .Net available on Android as well, Mono Project

Do you really think someday there will be nothing but smartphones ?

Mono on Linux is a nice concept, like WINE. Neither is suitable for professional applications. At best, Mono gives a minimum common subset of the look and feel. This is exactly the reason that Jobs and Apple have banned all cross platform development tools on IOS.

Yes. Smartphones, pads, embedded systems, etc. Desktops are going.

When I got into this business, a computer cost several million dollars and you used dumb terminals. People did a huge amount of work on them, tens of thousands of professionals worked on them. Giant companies were built on them.

I have no idea when Google's CromeBook will replace millions of PCs in large IT shops, but its going to happen.

[Pat Farrell]

Jesper de Jong wrote:Java has never been hugely successful in the area of rich client development; Java's great success i s in server-side software. Oracle is still trying with JavaFX (2.0 beta has just been released) but it remains to be seen if it's ever going to be really successful.

Java will continue to exist and thrive for many years to come. Thousands and thousands of companies all around the world have millions and millions of lines of code written in Java. Oracle and many other big companies have invested very deeply into Java.

Folks have been trying to do client-side, rich application development in Java for 14+ years. Its never had any success and I see no reason for that to change.

While I agree that there is a huge installed base and legacy code base in Java today, and like Cobol, it will live for many decades into the future, I don't see that it will be the hot new topic for modern, high-availability, high-scaling applications. It is simply much too hard to write proper multi-threaded, parallel applications. There are attempts to change them, but changing Java runs into the huge installed base. I expect that we will soon move to some newer, nicer language for large scale stuff. Perhaps Java++, perhaps Scala, perhaps something new.

[Matthew Brown]

Pat Farrell wrote:Desktops are going.

It might happen, but I think you're overstating it. In the workplace I don't see it happening soon. The entire type of work that gets done will have to change first, never mind the technology that supports it.

I like my Smartphone. But until it comes with dual 17 inch screens and a full-size keyboard it's simply not an option for most people's serious day-to-day work.

[chris webster]

Why are you restricting yourself to Java or .NET? As Jan says, think about the more abstract kinds of knowledge you can acquire that will still be useful in future, whichever language you happen to be using. And look out for tools and languages that may be on the rise and will teach you something new e.g. Scala, rather than only those that are already well established: be the first person in your street to acquire the new skills, instead of the last one to acquire the old skills.

Even within your alternatives, I can't think of a reason why anybody would choose .NET for a fresh application unless they were already committed to a Windows platform as well, so you're always going to be excluding other potential platforms/applications by choosing .NET. As for the client/server debate, I reckon we will see fewer heavy client-side applications in future, because the TCO of desktop PCs is simply too high and many applications are increasingly browser-based anyway. There's a lot of hype about "cloud" solutions and so on, but I still think basic economics will push people away from the desktop wherever possible, which will reduce the places where .NET/Windows has the edge over Java.

Meanwhile, Java is still available pretty much anywhere, and as others have said, there will be masses of Java code around for decades to come. Of course, with the huge numbers of Java developers still being churned out by the colleges, you wouldn't necessarily want to bet your future prosperity on working with "legacy" Java systems, which is another reason to pick up some non-language-specific skills.

[Gregg Bolinger]

this feels ironically relevant.

http://thecodemechanic.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/hate-java/

[Jan de Boer]

Torsten Oppermann wrote:Its just sad that many companies want you to have knowledge ...

Yes...

Well you're right in thát. The people who will decide that you will get the job, managers, human resourcers, don't think that way. They have a job title C# programmer, and they look for someone with C# experience, dot. If it would be in a totally different kind of software environment, they don't care, and don't even know what the difference is. And another thing is: you do have to know the pitfalls and strange things in some typical environment to be up and running and producing stuff quickly. And you have to do that, since the latter, software process unaware managers and human resourcers will decide after about a month if you can keep the job.

The only thing you can do about that is, yes, give in, and learn one typical vendor programming environment really good.

[Jan de Boer]

Torsten, one thing just came into my mind in the disadvantage of microsoft:

Sometimes I think they change things just because of commercial reasons. Your knowledge becomes outdated if they want to sell a new tool. My example: MFC. I programmed MFC C++ for a few years. I have no use of that experience now, when programming C#.NET. On the other hand the old experience I have in Delphi and Java is still more or less usable.

Some goes, but this is a side step, for their Operating Systems, and their Office Tools. Sometimes I think they change how things work, where options are, just so they can sell new courses. Compare Windows XP with Windows 7, everything is somewhere else. Same goes for Office 2003 and 2007.

[Torsten Oppermann]

well the Windows8 tech demo really makes me go for Java&PHP. It looks like they gonna drop WFC, Silverlight and .net and replace it with HTML5 and Javascript (at least at the client side)

They should have gone for standards a long time ago.... I bet they gonna publish a Microsoft Javascript Framework

If i where a .NET developer i would be sooo pissed....

[Jan de Boer]

Torsten Oppermann wrote:they gonna drop WFC, Silverlight and .net and replace it with HTML5 and Javascript (at least at the client side)

You mean:

Windows Foundation Classes (WFC)
Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

or did they support Watford FC :-)

[Matthew Brown]

I'm not convinced it's that bit a deal - unless you're specifically a Silverlight developer. As someone who has become a .NET developer more though company strategy than choice, I'm quite happy about it and I can't say it'll make any difference to the way I'm using .NET.