Trouble Ahead for Java

Jeremy Geelan writes "The editor-in-chief of the world's largest journal devoted to Java wonders whether, with the arrival of Microsoft's C# programming language on the scene, Java perhaps has only 5 years or so left to live. Javaland has erupted! This is a little like Bill Gates wondering out loud whether to send Scott McNealy a Christmas card. But is Alan Williamson right? Read this short article and decide for yourself."

Comments

Not likely :)

[Desmoden]

Java is popular because the programmers like it. Java may or may not be long for this world, but I can guarentee you that C# is not going to be what pushes it off the hill.

It's really a funny idea :)

Des

Re:Not likely :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with most of your post except the following points:

its main appeal seems to be in preventing stupid programmers from doing things their brains can't understand (like multiple inheritance).

Not really... Programming in "safe" languages frees your brain to concentrate on solving the problem rather than dealing with every little detail. It is rather liberating, I love easy, clean, and safe languages.

With that said, I still do 90% of my programming in C (for the last 15 years) because I need the speed. Ohwell, maybe one day we'll have the raw speed of C in a more programmer friendly language. I do use C++ some (when my clients allow), and if used properly it is much better than C, but still fairly dangerous, verbose, and tedious to use.

Java has succeeded by marketing and not for technical reasons. Microsoft is better than Sun at marketing, so C# will win.

Not really. C programmers wanted SOMETHING (anything) that was safer than C. Java is like C except safe... not only that, but it also had the promise of cross-platform compatibility.

The cross platform thing is a joke... the whole idea of using a complete VM like what Java has is retarted. The JDK is too damn big, there are no easy ways to install a minimal application... It's just annoying. And on top of that Java is nearly as verbose and tedious to use as C/C++.

I would argue that Smalltalk never took off because of the whole "VM" thing.

There is currently no language that satifies me.

I do some functional programming in languages like Erlang, O'Caml, and Haskell. Those are fairly nice but it's too hard to create fast code in those languages.

D shows some promise but looks like it will lack some of the best features of C++: Templates for example... something Java is getting because people finally woke up. D is another rather verbose language though. If it had type inferencing like O'Caml then that would really help.

Re:Not likely :)

[Anonymous Coward]

The language is awkward and unexpressive; its main appeal seems to be in preventing stupid programmers from doing things their brains can't understand (like multiple inheritance).

Now if that's not a stupid argument I don't know what is.

Look, most people know perfectly well how to play in the freeway. It still doesn't make sense to do it.

Extending two or more parent classes is not a difficult thing to do. However anyone who has had to maintain code that uses multiple inheritance can tell you that it geometrically decreases the maintainability of the code.

Spend some time with the design before you start coding and you can see that the clusterfuck of multiple-inheritance can be avoided.

Re:Not likely :)

[Tablizer]

(* Pure OO was thought up by the creators of smalltalk, like Alan Kay. Java isn't even pure OO in the same sense that smalltalk is. *)

Although Alan Kay coined the term "object oriented" and documented many of its concepts, it is generally agreed that OOP was born in 1967 via the process simulation language "Simula-67".

The inventors of Simula-67 just didn't know it was time to make buzzwords around thier creation.

And, there is no standard measurement of what "pure OO" actually means. It is true that Smalltalk's primatives tend to be more OOP than Java's. However, that is mostly a syntactical issue to most programmers. For example, you could replace the language's string handlers in Smalltalk easier and more transparently than with Java. However, few programmers are going to bother in practice. Thus, it is mostly a bragging point cliche rather than something that makes real-world development quicker, faster, and cheaper.

oop.ismad.com

Re:Not likely :)

[ergo98]

My personal opinion is that within 2 years C# will be tied or slowly overtaking Java for server-side code. The client-side will be dominated by .NET clients for the desktop and DHTML (or a derivative thereof). Within 4-5 years, Java will be marginalised into cell-phones/PDAs and will likely be offering interoperability with .NET which will have become the de facto standard for server technology.

As a long-time Microsoft droid (with several Microsoft composite certifications to prove it), I have to respectfully disagree: To me it appears that .NET has gone over like a lead balloon, and the industries apathy for it could not be more apparent. Despite it being the future, local job listings show Java leading C# job lists approximately 50:1, and of those few C# listings, most all have it as "one of many laundry list nice-to-have languages". I have no opinion personally about J2EE or C#/.NET, however it is astounding how this has been a giant paradigm shift that the industry just refuses to embrace.

If I had to put it into a nutshell why, I'd say that Microsoft has "revolutionized" a few too many times, and companies are getting sick of seeing their investments in Microsoft technology being obsoleted. .NET brings a new component model that fundamentally obsoletes COM, rendering millions of hours of work wasted (yeah you can wrap a COM object in a .NET wrapper, however it isn't managed and has the standard MS slant of it being "dirtier" in some abstract, undefined way). Microsoft is in a continuous game of selling new software, and to do that they need to convince you that what you have is obsolete, and in doing so they continually obsolete customers momentum and investment, and there is absolutely no doubt that there is growing resentment. In just the past few years I've gone from being a dyed in the wool MS advocate, to actively encouraging the use of open standards and more vendor neutral tools : It isn't my responsibility to help Microsoft continue the multiple sales growth, and their dominance says that to continue to do it they'll have to start bleeding every customer that much more.

Or not

[hexghost]

Give me a break. Java has over 1 million programmers (quoted off of the sun site) if not more in its user base. Its been embraced by more than one industry. It has APIs for everything from speach to distributed computing. What does C# have? Nothing yet but a BETA. Microsoft simply took java and modified it with some psuedo-new ideas and called it C#. Until they have the APIs and industry support, not to mention write once run anywhere, then, THEN perhaps they can start to challange Java. Until then, C# is nothing more than a new microsoft tool.

Re:Or not

[augustz]

Write once run anware is a load of bull. The syntax of java and C# are very close, true, but the underlying CLR has some real distinctions (and I'd argue improvements).

API's? I think you forget Microsoft is a huge company. What's to stop you from using the Microsoft Speech component from C#? Nothing. In fact, C# is meant to take advantage of exisiting components. And though Java zealots hate to admit it, that means that there are more than zero API's that C# can use.

Every time a read a Java zealots arguments I'm struck by how FACTUALLY wrong they are, and how STUPID they like to think Microsoft is. You call C# a bet.

Visual Studio .Net is certainly not a beta. In fact. I look at the first Java SDK and I look at the first Visual C# SDK and I think, wow, if this is what Java zealots call beta (despite the fact that it is shipping) then those first Java SDK's should be called alpha alpha.

The point of the article is that Java zealots like to ignore the facts, and that that may come back to bite them. I think your note proves the point.

Re:Or not

[deanj]

Correction: 3 million programmers. 1 million downloads of 1.4 in the first month it was released (a few months ago)

Re:Or not

[HunterOfBeer]

What does C# have?

A full-featured IDE that lets you collapse arbitrary sections of code? (Among other features of course)
A few million Visual Studio users looking for the next new thing?
Support from an 800-pound gorilla?

Java has a lot going for it too and neither language should be discounted.

Maybe in five years COBOL.NET will be king...*shrug* You just never know in this industry and that's what makes it fun.

This is a Good Thing

[atrowe]

I, for one, welcome the oncoming of Microsoft's C# language. A little bit of competition can only help the market. When I first started programming in Java eight years ago, the industry was far different than today. Java was, for the most part, an open standard, and one was free to do with it as one pleased. Now that Java is the biggest player in the industry, it seems Sun has gotten a bit greedy, and is trying to cash in on Java's popularity.

Microsoft's C# entry will only cause more competition in the market, and the consumers and programmers are the ones who will benefit. I'd love to see Sun loosen some of their restrictive Java liscensing practices in response to C#, and I think that is just what will happen. Open source wins the day yet again.

Re:This is a Good Thing

[Rob Y.]

Competition's fine -- as long as you have real competition.

Let's see. I'ts 2003. All Windows systems come with the latest C# runtime environment and no Java environment.

Well, yes. You can download A JVM for IE (you know, the web browser used by most people, you know why). Of course it's based on the old Java 1 AWT stuff, and anything newer will run really slow.

Well, yes. You can also download the latest Sun Java runtime for standalone apps (or if you're a Mozilla user), but it won't work in IE.

Do you think this is really competition?

And by the way, you can bet any server side components used in any C# enterprise configuration will be Windows only. And for all the talk of openness, you can bet portability will extend to Windows on Intel and Windows on ARM (maybe Mac).

So, it looks like all the Java crowd's got left to run on is some pretty good, truely portable technology and some very valid distrust of Microsoft.

But MS's thumb's going to be pressing as hard as it can on the scale. That is, unless the Judge evaluating the DOJ settlement has *anything* on the ball.

ummm... heard this before...

[Misha]

haven't they said something like this before?

the problem with C++ was that exactly zero of code was reused, even though it was supposed to be made simpler. Java code actually reuses itself pretty darn well, and last I checked J2EE library just keeps growing and growing, and largely its success is in that.

as for C#, i doubt anyone except Microsoft is interested in seeing more packages of it. it becomes pointless to have non-object code in C# if you are planning to devise a framework for other people to work with.

anyways, if Java only has five years life in it, why would you stake your life on C# of all things? wouldn't you expect that in five years people would be switching to something newer than the love-child of Java and Microsoft that didn't overtake its predecessor and hardly had any advantages except probably back-doors into the Windows kernel?

just my two cents...

Somewhat premature

[cheekymonkey_68]

I think you'll find even COBOL programs are still be developed commercially, so to say Java will be dead within 5 years is flamebait.

With C# Microsoft have taken ideas from Java, but C# is isn't Java.

C# is designed to kill of Visual J++, by migrating users to the .Net via C# but I doubt even Microsoft think it will usurp Java itself.

Sure Microsoft are trying their best to stifle Java, thats because they feel threatened like some sort of wounded animal.

Microsoft can't rely on Windows and Office anymore as being their core business longterm, hence their .Net stategy (with C# a small part of their plan)

Java probaly will die eventually, but I'm sure it won't be C# that does it.

Credibility of the Journal guy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowadays, it pays to always suspect propoganda first. The press isn't in the information business, it's in the money business.

I smell a rat when the editor of a bloody Java magazine sets the timetable of death for Java. He's either nuts, or he's bought. No other alternative.

Myths #6, #7, #8

[Pinball Wizard]

I don't buy it. Here's why.

Myth #6. .Net will be accepted by users of non-Windows systems.

Despite the hoopla over Mono, its not likely that .Net will succeed on systems outside of Microsoft's control. Two reasons for this - 1 Microsoft will make certain that .Net running anywhere other than Windows is crippled in some way and 2 - people who already don't use Windows have a distaste for Microsoft products, generally speaking.

Myth #7 Java needs the desktop to succeed

Not so. Java's greatest success to date has been on the server, powering servlets and .jsp's. It is the overwhelming choice among corporate users standardizing on a development platform. Another factor to consider. Java will win where UNIX and Linux servers are used. .Net will be used where Windows servers are used. IMO, the decisive factor between the .Net/Java battle will be what servers companies choose to buy. And anyone who wants a powerful, reliable server with good security built in is going Unix, unless they are trying to be cheap(Sorry. The truth hurts sometimes). Because Unix/Linux/IBM/Sun are winning where industrial strength servers are concerned, so too will Java win.

Myth #8. .Net is better because it allows you to plug in multiple languages.

Um, well yeah, as long as they are singly-inherited languages that don't have pointers and don't support any unique features, I guess that statement is true. Otherwise you are really looking at a bunch of languages whose features are the same and only differ by syntax(unless they don't support all of .Nets features, in which case they are even more crippled). Don't expect Perl to be able to do all its cool tricks under .net, and forget about languages like lisp and scheme.

Java is five years ahead in this game, has widespread corporate acceptance, and the deciding factor is the server, where Microsoft is still way behind. If this is a horse race, my money is on Java.

Java will outlive C#

[Glock27]

Java will outlive C# simply because C# is tied to Windows. Don't believe the hype about Mono - Mono is in it's infancy, while there are at least two high-quality commercial JREs for Linux and a rapidly improving open-source ahead-of-time Java compiler, gcj. Mono faces an uphill legal battle to actually provide any signficant subset of .Net on Linux.

One example of the author's cluelessness is that he touts the Halcyon solution - which is implemented in Java. This is supposed to show Java's vulnerability how?

The rest of his "myths" are just as insightful..i.e. a bunch of crap. ;-)

Where was SWT in this discussion for instance? Where was the discussion regarding millions of Java-enabled devices in the marketplace? Where was the discussion of Javas total dominance in application servers right now (perhaps .Net will make a dent, but it remains to be seen).

Then the author gives forth with:

"We have a beautiful language here in Java; it has achieved industry-wide support and is pushing forward with great velocity. What can we do to support it?"

For a start, perhaps NOT writing clueless, FUD-filled articles that completely exaggerate the threat of C# to Java... Many, many Java users are going to be very slow to move to a Microsoft proprietary solution...and make no mistake about it, .Net is Microsoft proprietary. Only the C# language and the CLR runtime have been submitted to ECMA and those make up a tiny subset of .Nyet (sorry, couldn't resist doing that at least once!).

Re:Cobol is still in demand.

[happyclam]

There are so many Java programmers and so much Java code being produced...

Produced? Yes... supported? Maybe... I wonder what percentage of the Java code written in the last five years died with the series of dot com failures we've witnessed.

That said, of course you're correct: COBOL is still in use, and Java will last much longer than five years.

But the language of choice may be something else in five years. Java hasn't been around that long, and scads of people were saying it would never overtake C or C++ when it was first released. And really, C hadn't been around that long when Java was first introduced.

Re:XP quote and more

[Twister002]

IBM has done a LOT more for Java GUIs than Sun ever has IMO.

I installed the latest version of Eclipse and I was amazed at how fast the GUI ran. It is the first Java application that I've ran that didn't frustrate the hell out of me by running slowly. Sun should incorporate whatever GUI widgets IBM made into the next JDK.

Corporations are tired of Java

[Yo Grark]

As a sideline observer, I have seen Java rise and CRASH. At more than 18 customer sites, Java was regarded as amateur. Java is a great cross platform language, but it never did fulfill it's promise of a THIN Solution to bandwidth problems.

Our company spent Millions coding in Java, only to replace it with Native C 2 years later. Guess what? 55% increase in speed, 45% reduction in size, and before you knock the programmers, they're completely competant.

I know of 2 companies who put their faith completely in Java, had a great product, but somehow corporations kept waiting and waiting til Java "matured" and these comanies both went bankrupt waiting.

-YoGrark

==The opinions expressed in this opinion are not necessarily based on fact, are not necessarily reprentative of the poster==

Beyond the Java vs. Anything debate

[midh]

I started learning Java during the great Java hype (1997). Then I went back to school to learn C. My initial impression was, why would anyone want to program in this unweildy language where your executables crash with weird errors like "Segmentation Fault" and "Core Dumped". I did not like all that pointer crap and the fact that you hade to declare your variables before you did anything else.

Four years of college and several programming languages later Java is still my best girl. But I have learned to appreciate the beauty of C and its need to be a control freak in some cases.

To solve the debate, I am going to quote the words of one of my professors. "A programming language is a tool in a tool box". There are several things wrong with that analogy. I tend to think that a programming language is like a woman and learning one is like dating.

Im my 5 year 'dating' life I dated more languages than girls. Perl, Python, Tcl, C ... each have their own attractions and turn offs. C# is something I haven't approached yet. But like dating, it just broadens your outlook (not to mention the fact that it is fun).

There should be not be fear of a new programming language. It is the new girl in town. It is true that one has to be wary that C# is a Microsoft baby. If it turns out that you cannot use C# without paying MS big bucks and the returns are not justifiable there are always other alternatives to look to.

When I was a sophomore, I was scared when some senior started talking about C++. I thought, another language. Oh no. But once you have mastered the basics of what I referer to as the dating game, you can romance almost any girl. Even if it was the girl with red hair and pierced ears (Perl) or the one that you can't take your eyes off of (Scheme).

Re:Cobol is still in demand.

[Kircle]

I hear Cobol programmers get paid fairly well these days. Why? Because there aren't that many of them. While I certainly do not believe Java will be killed off by C#, I do see the author making an good point.

He asks if Java is "here to stay." In the sense of whether it will remain dominant in the coming years, maybe. Maybe not.

It is about the development Environment and tools

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with the Java Environment is the integration of the tools. Even beta 2 of .net I was amazed at the productivity gains. Even thou I hate the beast they do have very good tools. The tools will make the difference. They did in the early 90's with VB. People bitch about performance that is not the case. If you look at VB It had performance problems compared to C MFC apps but it was highly adopted because a lot of people could easily churn out code. Even people that should not ever write code.

C# as a language does not matter it is very similar to java. It is about the tools and can you get a business analyst that churns out VB code who has never used a command line to adopt your environment.

Jbuilder is a nice IDE and ANT is nice for makes but while I am vi ing an apache .conf file and figuring out where my classpath is pointing too and why my servlet is not making its JDBC call the .Net guy has already deployed their app and is fetching XML records from SQL Server.

Which one will they adopt and why? A nerdy UNIX /Java person that can be as productive as a .NET / VB business analyst will cost a company more.
I hope the beast does win but it is about the tools!!!! History repeats itself.

Re:I'm no expert, but...

[thermostat42]

Well, if we're going by revenue:

Microsoft: $25,296M

Sun: $18,250M

IBM: $85,866M

So, with a little math (25296/18250) its actually 1.4 times smaller, while MS is 3.4 times smaller than IBM.

Java isn't going anywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is made up of two kinds of people:

• Those that set standards and try to, the leaders. These are the people who fight up stream, sometimes have crazy amounts of loyalty, oddball ideology, etc..
  
• Those that follow. There is nothing wrong with these people, they play a very critical roll and in many ways they probably have their lives more put together than those of us who insist that X is going to be the next big thing and work outselves in to a 3 year long frenzy trying to make sure that it is rather than getting to know our neighbors and smelling flowers and such.
  

No disrespect intended at all but java lowered the benchmark. In the bad old days you need to know about different platforms, you needed to know how OSes and processors worked to be a really really good software engineer. Not that those skills are what define a programmer or what make someone useful in this industry but that's how it was. Java steps in and you don't need to know about hardware or anything like that to be an effective programmer. Plus it's insanely easy to do a lot of stuff, you can just churn out code that does the job correctly in it. Now it's going to take a super computer to run on and your apps are going to have a slightly different look and feel and there is this huge JRE image you have to transport with your apps but you can make apps faster and you can use people with less knowledge to do it and that's probably a lot more valuble than a few cycles and a few megabytes of RAM. (BTW, I've always felt that lowering the benchmark was my duty as a guy with the CS degrees and the knowledge about how all the low level stuff works, the job of us is to make it possible for non-computer people to do useful things with computers.) Java lowered that benchmark in a radical way and then heavy weights like IBM, Sun, and even MS at the beginning were touting it as the future, the new VB, the future of software.. There is a lot of legitimacy to using tools like that, it shouldn't take a genius to write most of the code that needs to be written. Java is an insanely good tool because it does lower the benchmark and it allows people to focus more on solving problems than bits and bytes.

Now that's a prime tool for followers to use, it's easy, it has support from big players. Lot's of the people who are in the java game are people who follow, not all of them but a lot of them. They saw that as the skill to put on the resume, plus it's easy and fun to use, so they move in and start coding up java. Now MS is trying to piss on their parade, java doesn't come with XP (big f---ing deal because anyone serious about java application development was only supporting a specific JDK or two anyways and you probably put it on the CD with your app, that how we do it at IBM and both IBM and Sun have pretty liberal licenses for redistributing their JREs) and they've got this great new C# technology that's just as easy and not too many people have been fired for picking MS solutions. That's another prime environment for the followers. Of course there will be people who flock to it. It's all FUD and hype but it works. The thing to recognize is that those people who moved to java and are going to move to C# will move to whatever the next thing is too, it's not like they're really loyal or something, as long as it's profitable to use and there isn't something more profitable they'll use something.

I think the reality is that a ton of code has been done in java and some of the big boys have committed enough that it's not going to be easy to move completely to C#. Java is going to die just like C and C++ did... oh wait. The fact that C# exists at all is proof of how good a tool the java is because MS is trying to knock it off and lock their followers in to their platform. It's also proof that these kinds of tools are needed and desired.

Java won't go away but I think there is a lot to be said for watching this tide of followers move. The Free software community can benefit from it largely. Maybe we build our own Java/C# for Linux and BSD. There are plenty of tools that already exist for it. I think you could make a standard distribution of Python with a select group of modules, document it, brand it, rally some support for it and you have something similar. If we want to start to really move over to that next level we should start trying to build that benchmark lowering tool for the opensource world. Simply copying or porting those kinds of tools is enough to give Linux and free software some a fair amount of credibility but to take it up a notch we should lead and create our own tools like that, the best you can do while Sun and MS are leading is suck hind tit, you still get some milk but you might not get your hunger satisfied.

./ misrepresents the article

[micromuncher]

Once again the intent of the article is to KNOW YOUR ENEMY. Williamson tries to quash some arrogance on the part of the Java community and reiterates the M$ media machine can win the mindshare of decision makers.

Riding home on the train last week, I was listening to two "software guys" talk about the issue. The summary, "Wow! Microsoft! .NET! Java is dead." "Do you know any Java?" "Yeah I took a course."

The guy took one course as a "programmer" and is an instant expert. Microsoft LOVES the instant expert, and books devoted to the programming shaman are dedicated to stroke their egos before the technologies are publically released.

My point is that its not just the high end decision makers that M$ buys, but also the low end technoweenie.

(The conversation proceeded to Oracle is dead 'cause its over priced, SQLServer rules the world - at which point I wanted to YELL M$ IS PAGE RECORD LOCKING F**KHEAD - then I realized that saying that I'd likely get the same blank stare as my mother gives me when I talk computer talk.)

Packaging...

[alder]

That is a matter of preference. You can easily provide very similar appearance for Java applications as well. Try to check Eclipse (the first example that came to mind, possibly because I use it every day :) - it uses a "launcher" which is seen by people as eclipse.exe file. The rest are plug-ins, which are .jars, though as an IDE user you couldn't care less about it. In other words, this Java application has the same appearance, as any .NET application. And though Java's method to achieve this is different from .NET's, "people percieving a platform" will not notice anything.

Re:You are misinformed

[Hard_Code]

dnoyeb said:

Sun is not smothering Java, but they are not letting Java move as fast nor as friendly as it could.

Actually, I'm not so sure I buy into this. From where I'm standing, it is still very hard to get clients updated quickly to the latest bleeding edge Java (no thanks to Microsoft's desktop dominance), so I don't see how Java is not moving as fast as it could be. Are you keeping track of all the specs and extensions they churn out? RMI, EJB, CORBA, JDBC, XML support, Servlets and JSP, JDO, Mail libraries, JNDI libraries, LDAP libraries, 3D graphics support, now they even have a serious Java Gaming push! Java seems to be moving very fast to me.

No I agree c# will not have the community that Java has EVER.

C# does NOT compete with Java. I have to say this about 15 times per month. Clearly M$ wants to keep pushing this idea, but no one has yet told me why its supposed to. C# competes with c++. c# is for windows, Java is for everywhere. Yes maybe you can use c# on some other os, but c# is "for" windows.

I wish they would just let this fake arguement of c# knocking off Java die.

Just wanted to quote that because I wholeheartedly agree. C# is primarily a migration path for *MS developers* to step into a world which until now J2EE has been the sole citizen. Of course MS is going to hype it if it can detract from Java, but that's just extra. And frankly, I'd rather see MS software written in C#/CLR (which is actually a decent architecture, with security, etc.) than C and C++.

My thoughts

[jedir0x]

Well, i am on a win2k pro workstation right now. I have a highly modified distribution of RedHat 7.2 with latest stable kernel from kernel.org. I'm a Java developer (among other languages). I installed visual studio .NET the other day... and learned the language (syntax and some libraries) in a matter of hours... it's ALMOST exactly like Java, syntax wise. I thought it was cool beacuse the GUI type stuff was faster than Java's Swing/AWT stuff... but then realized, how often am i making GUI stuff in java?... never. o well. As i browsed through the API, i started noticing stuff for accessing the windows registry... i saw stuff for loading DLL's... I saw a multitude of other things that were specific to windows. Now i ask you, how the hell will they port .NET to *n?x (that's unix) based operating systems if a good portion (about 20%) of thier APIs are specific to windows? How is that cross compatible? And what god awful software am i going to have to install on my Linux box to make it ".NET compatible". Are they going to force me to install a "registry emulator"? I hardly see C# taking over java. For one thing, I can't imagine any UNIX admin allowing microsoft software to run on his servers... eh... who cares... I'll still write java code when i want to write quick and easy OO code. Oh yeah, and my bigest concern about the whole .NET thing is this: Everything compiled under .NET (C/C++, C#, VB, etc) is ran through the CLR, and will run the same speed, no matter what language it was writen in. I've heard you can compile "nativley" but you loose a huge percentage of the .NET APIs. With that said, why would i ever use C++.NET? If i'm gunna spend time writing C++ code i want it to run natively!!!!