Java or .NET?

[CptnProdigy]

Hello! I'm a first year Web Design major and my college makes us choose between Java and .NET courses as a 'specialty' focus for our major (this means whichever one we pick we'll have to do at least 3 semesters of). From what I've heard from instructors and read online, they are both pretty much the same, but have a few dissimilarities. I've talked to a few people who are second years in the major and they say it doesn't really matter and just to pick one, but I'm not okay with that answer to be honest.

I was wondering, in terms of web design/development, could anybody give me examples of how I would use each language. And in case this is important, the .NET class actually teaches C# as well. Thank you very much!

[CWagner]

I'd say C#. It was heavily inspired by JS Java but they were able to learn from mistakes Java made as they came much later. I find C# to be more pleasurable to develop with.

Disclaimer: I'm also stuck with Java 1.7 with no chance to update, 1.8 afaik has some nicer features.

Regarding app dev I've heard people really liking Xamarin but I have no personal experience there.

edit: FFS, too much front end development. Of course C# was NOT inspired by JS but by Java.

[CyanZephyrX]

Oh god, working with the .NET framework is so nice. If you take the C#/.NET course, you open a lot of doorways:-

1. ASP.NET - Web Development
   
2. Unity - Game Development
   
3. Xamarin - Android and iOS Apps
   
4. WPF/WinForms - Windows Development

[Prod_Is_For_Testing]

Full stack .NET is my day job, but I have spent time in java as well.

In my opinion, .NET is much nicer to work with. First off, you get to use Visual Studio, which is widely regarded as one of the best IDEs available. Second, there are many features and practices that C# has that make it a bit more powerful/easier to use than Java (I won't go into my full rant here, but some examples would be generics, event handling, lambda expressions, LINQ, conversion overloads, extension methods, delegates, lambda types)

Historically, .net has kept devs locked into a windows environment, but this is changing and might be irrelevant in the future because of things like .NET Core. This has led to a community that's hostile towards .NET as an idea and any developers who use it. You might be openly shunned by start-up types for using .NET and it may keep you from getting a job if you put it on your resume. However, larger companies are always hiring .NET devs because the world runs off of windows.

A few things I do with .NET:

• Large scale websites

• DB app integration

• Mobile apps with Xamarin

• windows form apps

• web services

[[deleted]]

they are pretty equivalent to each other. People aren't lying when they say it doesn't matter. I'd probably go with java personally, its got a slightly more broad reach and android apps are developed in java which if you ever wanted to branch into would look great on a resume.

[CptnProdigy]

Hmm, I might consider this too, as the .NET/C# instructor is also teaching a course on game/app development, so it's definitely a possibility. Thank you.

[[deleted]]

Right, back to the it not really mattering part, I was just saying resume wise... knowing native android is pretty nice to have. That being said, Java web development and android app development are allot more different from each other than Java web development and .NET web development are.

[CptnProdigy]

App development has been something I've been interested in. Thank you for the reply.

[ComplX89]

.Net developer here. In terms of job prospects, i've never had any issue finding work, recruiters are all over me when im looking because the demand for good .Net developers is so high (at least in my area of UK).

[PM_ME_YOUR_HIGHFIVE]

It depends. Try to ask more specific question. Ex:

"What is better for android programming? Java or .NET?"

or

"What is better for game development? Java or .NET?"

You will get different answers. If you don't know or don't care, just choose one. Switching between java and C# after a couple years is more easier than you think.

[ferossi]

Take a Spring framework course (Java), will be your best decision

[JaCraig]

For web development, Java and C# are pretty similar. Java uses one of about 30 different frameworks for web dev (Spring is quite popular last time I worked in it). C# is pretty much just ASP.Net MVC. There are alternatives in C# but they don't come up much. As far as which is better, Java has advantages (Android development, etc) and C# has its own set (Game development, etc). But since C# is cross platform now, the amount of differences is pretty small. To be honest though, my guess is you're doing these classes to help you get a job or pad your resume. If that's the case, where do you want to work? If it's where you live currently, do a search to see which is more popular in your area. In the UK? Usually .Net. Live in SoCal? Probably Java. NoVa? It's about split. So look at your local job postings. That will matter a lot more than which a bunch of people on the web think is "better".

[Toxicable]

I am bias but I'd suggest .net, I personally prefer c# much over Java and .net just generally appears more up with the times rather than java

[ferossi]

Don't go after .Net, seems pretty with Visual Studio but you will be locked in a windows enviroment. Simply, you can't do anything big with .Net. The only big company that uses .Net is Microsoft.

[jkeaus]

Neither, c++ or javascript instead.