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Java vs .NET

Posted by michael on from the flamebait dept.

CHaN_316 writes "Yahoo is running a story called 'Is Java Finished?' It provides a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses of J2EE and contrasts them with .NET. Classic arguments are brought up like Java being great for portability while .NET ties you down to Microsoft products, etc. It's interesting that they bring up the Java Community Process, and how it is a rather slow moving procedure that is causing Java to become stagnant."

8 of 686 comments (clear)

  1. Java's not exactly pining for the fields just now by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The Software Development Times ran an article which mentioned many of the perceived advantages of .NET, and Kuro5hin ran a story which did just the opposite. :)

    Dot Net doesn't look like a developer panacea just yet. If Sun keeps the enhancements coming and works to bring the development environment up to Visual Studio's standards (Yes, VS has its problems, but it has a lot of unique tools, like compile-and-continue, which save hours!), Java may well survive.

    Dot Net is also anything but small. It's possible to create ROMmable Java applications in just a couple megs of flash memory. On the other hand, there's no such thing as embedded dot Net just yet. And if they continue with the execution model they've currently got, any piece of code is going to net a ROM many times larger than what's possible with Java. Either way, I'll want $699 for my fp, beeyotch.

  2. Java vs. .Net by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The ".Net only works on Microsoft" is more than just a classic arguement. In fact, I think it's the most important factor to take into account.

    If I want to make some simple embedded device, if I have to option to use Java instead of having to license Windows CE for my product, why would I ever choose MS over Java? .Net will never take off. After all, it hasn't during the 3 years its been out.

  3. Lies, statistics, and analysts by Sanity · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This John Rymer guy, around whom this entire article is based, is talking out of his arse. When will journalists learn that if you want to know something about software engineering, ask a software engineer? Only PHBs, clueless journalists, and other analysts listen to analysts.
    Java and .NET take vastly different approaches to development, said John Rymer, a vice president with Forrester Research. Java's philosophy of development is to expose low-level system interfaces to give developers greater control. Microsoft simplifies the development process; the developer has less control -- but the tools are easier to use.
    If anything, the opposite is true - the Java API is certainly higher-level when it comes to GUI stuff, and everything else is pretty analogous between the Java and .NET APIs.
    "Before, Microsoft was basically shut out of these projects," Rymer said. .NETs ease of use and lower licensing costs also will be a draw.
    Lower licensing costs than free? I would love to see that.

    Having worked with both Java and .NET, I would say that things like C#'s foreach statement make for easier and cleaner code, but Java 1.5 will leapfrog C# when it introduces generics along with its own version of foreach, and other timesaving features. Java's big failing, IMHO, is Swing. It is too big and too clunky, Java is crying out for a stripped down GUI library that is part of the API spec that will be as easy to work wit

  4. Come on ... by OMG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .NET ? Blowing J2EE out of the water ?
    Are you serious ? Then:

    Where is the appserver that runs .NET ?

    Can you cluster that appserver like J2EE-appservers ?

  5. Industry Newspeak by Stiletto · · Score: 5, Insightful


    You would think that a language or API that doesn't change every day would be praised with words such as "standardized" "stable" and "established".

    But in Bizarro World (where we all are apparently living), we criticize it as "stagnant" and "slow moving".

    Compare with the OpenGL/Direct3D discussions.

    Carpenters don't buy from hammer companies that change their hammers every "release".

  6. Is $TECHNOLOGY dead? by cubicledrone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any article that asks that question is automatically crap. Period. End of discussion.

    --
    Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
  7. Re:VS sucks by alext · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As someone has mysteriously marked the parent as "interesting" it might be worthwhile to provoke a genuinely interesting debate below it so that readers are not too disappointed.

    The parent insists that no Java IDE "can touch" VS for "any single thing you could possibly want to do", but a moment later admits that "VS.NET doesn't have as robust a feature set as some Java IDEs".

    Features like refactoring, perhaps, as found on the free Eclipse IDE, or the modestly priced IDEA?

    Or, looking a bit further afield, we could ask how one might develop a complete workflow system in VS, as you can in WebLogic Workshop?

    My clients do these things all the time, but VS has a long way to go to offer a competitive alternative to the Java tools available now.

  8. Re:VS sucks by mrtrumbe · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How in the blue heck do regions make refactoring unnecessary? Do you know what refactoring is??

    Let's say I have a class in package A and I want to move it to package B (in dotNet parlance, packages are namespaces). In dotNet, I'd have to personally touch every piece of code accessing that class and redo the import statements (dotNet: using statements) to reflect the change. Same goes for method name changes, public member changes, method signatures (parameter order, adding parameters, etc.), etc.

    Also, the good refactoring IDEs provide a lot of extras like generation of getters/setters (dotNet: properties) (also referred to as encapsulation), extracting interfaces and/or superclasses, replace inheritance with delegation, replace constructor with factory method, make method static, etc., etc., etc.

    Note that most of the above refactorings not only change the class in question, but also all accessing classes and methods. This sometimes means you can make a significant change to a heavily used method or class and do NO WORK to the rest of you classes.

    If you are interested in the power of IDE refactoring, check out the IDEA refactoring page. Here is a screenshot of the refactoring menu.

    In short, refactoring is REALLY powerful and very, very useful. If you are saying otherwise, you probably haven't used it. Also, it should be noted that several companies are making refactoring plug-ins for Visual Studio. Obviously SOME people don't think that Visual Studio's features render refactoring "unnecessary" or a "waste of time." Myself included. (I'm a Java junky programming in a dotNet environment.)

    Taft