What features should Java 7 onwards have to encourage switching from C#? [closed]

Answer 1

A simple way to map values in your model to the UI (like bind in Java/FX)

Answer 2

A native 'decimal' type for Java replacing the BigDecimal class would be nice. But Java thread-safe collections are nice.

Perhaps the question is not so much what Java 7 needs to persuade developers to use it, but more a case of what makes developers want to move from Enterprise/server-side java language to a different C# desktop Windows-only oriented world?

For most developers, the language isn't difficult to pick up be it Java or C#. I develop in Java, but Linq didn't take long to understand and use.

I think the choice of Java or C# depends on what motivates you personally -perhaps money? in which case either language will do whether they have certain features or not.

Ste

Answer 3

on the other side, has .net got enterprise open projects like Terracotta (semi commerical), Infinispan, Compass ? no. ncache (commerical), lucene.net are far behind them. Especially Terracotta is unique, it can improve some of your app x100, it's simply perfect and free (partitioning is commerical). If we implement a high load app in both .net with anything and java with terracotta + hibernate + terracotta-hibernate-integration, java app will probably far more performant than .net one. Ther're some ports to .net like nhibernate, log4net, lucene.net, but all of them are trying to catch java versions. And entity framework is a disaster, they have to start with nhibernate as the base or get some lessons from them.

.net is only working on windows (mono is far from enterprise, there isn't any enterprises using it), how much money does myspace.com spent for their 4000 windows web server licences ? 1 million ?

You can't install a simple plugin to VS (and can't do some other things) if don't buy professional edition,

Some windows instance types in amazon web services are nearly x2 price of the linux ones.

if you look at ohloh.net open source java project counts (with language comparison tools), you'll see that java has x5 more volume than c#.

also Java has %20 share on worldwide while c# has %4.x (source:tiobe.com)

Look at the top web sites; only microsoft and myspace are using .net. google, amazon, ebay, linkedin, alibaba, twitter (switched to scala from rails)... many of them are using java and many others are using php, ruby (facebook, yahoo,..)

As a language Java is far behind c#, but Scala (runs on jvm) is as good as c# and it's performance is nearly same as java and also it can use all jdk and other java code as his library.

I'm not saying java is better, but I'm saying java is as valuable as .net, too.

Answer 4

I'm a C# programmer and about one year ago I had to participate in the development of an application in Java. What I missed the most was:

• Visual Studio (Eclipse is nice, but VS is VS, especially Team Edition)
• Comparing strings with ==
• Properties
• Basic types as first-class objects (e.g. not "int" type vs "Integer" class)
• Anonymous methods (a workaround can be made by using anonymous classes but it is not the same)
• LINQ

And there was one single Java feature that I missed when I went back to C#: explicit exception declaration in method signatures.

DISCLAIMER: I am speaking about a somewhat old project, I don't know if some of these features are present in current versions of Java.

Answer 5

I don't see any point in "luring" anyone anywhere. They solve different problems and you should use whichever one suits you.

Java has less "Language" and less structures to trip up new people, it's platform independent and it doesn't change too fast allowing old code to stick around for a LONG time (Good for some large companies).

C# has tight desktop integration and a slew of nice features that make it more fun to program. It has .net integration. It has pointers, closures, etc which make it harder for n00bs (a valid language target, hence Basic) but more fun for experienced programmers--I haven't convinced myself that these features make you more productive, but in some situations they can make your code a lot nicer! Also if you need pointers, you need pointers.

I don't see a whole lot of overlap in target audiences. Why change a language to attract programmers when it's healthier for the entire industry to have two healthy languages each targeted at solving different problems attracting different developers?

Answer 6

I would need function pointers of some sort. The ability to use delegates in C# is so useful. There are so many times in Java where I want to create a map of delegates or function pointers as the solution, but I can't. I know you can simulate a similar thing in Java, but having the abstraction as part of the language is a huge plus!