The editor in chief at Java Developer’s Journal has published a piece debunking the three more spreaded myths about C#, in a wake up call effort for the Java community, trying to show that .NET is not to be underestimated and C#, technically-speaking, is not “bad” as some Java-heads think it is. On a related article, Joel Spolsky, from the JoelOnSoftware fame, wrote an article about where his company and himself personally stand on the Microsoft proposition for a new global API, the .NET Framework.
There May be Trouble Ahead for Java
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
If things continue to progress as they are, C# will blow Java away! Not just because it’s a well designed language but because of the .Net CLR, because of VisualStudio.Net, because of the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA) etc…
.Net has a lot going for it and Microsoft is taking the right approach. Once .Net gets implemented on BSD, MacOS X, Linux, BeOS
Java will have serious competition.
Over all it will be good for the industry.
ciao
yc
Java has too many companies behind it, and is already too mature for .NET to significantly force users to change. I believe they will coexist just like C/C++ coexists with java. Besides, any really good programmer picks the language best for the job, rather than being naive and picking only modern and new languages. Also, considering how Microsoft has a bad habit of changing specs with new releases, I don’t think .NET will be gaining any ground on any other platforms other than windows.
The worst thing about the .NET framework (which includes the .NET languages) is the ‘.NET’ name. Way too many people confuse the languages with the whole MS Passport / web services thing and summarily dismiss the value of C# as a language because they think it means buying into the whole MS Passport scheme.
Probably the worst naming since the folks at Netscape changed LiveScript to JavaScript. Can’t tell you how many people I come across (even in the tech industry) think that Java and JavaScript are related.
I thing that the hole C# thing is another MS thing at all. Because after all, its not MS which had the idea to gain platform independancy through a VM. And if you you look to a C# sourcecode you will see nothing else that JAVA code with some extensions and renamings and so on…
MS is a kind of parasite:
For MS its now the right time to make that thing roll after JAVA(and more importend VMs) has established (and is had although MS was not that helpful – look at IE with JAVA 1.1.8 or so)
And dont tell me DAU can and is willing to install SUNS’Vm.
So ordinary user could never get more than 1.1.8. So no clientside JAVA(I mean applet @ first) could use all the new JAVA-Stuff that was developed by SUN.
So for User JAVAVM stands still at 1.1.8
MS Produkt Formula:
if (OTHER_COMPANY1_PRODKUKT.hasProvenRight())
NEW_MS_PRODUCT=OTHER_COMPANY1_PRODKUKT+OTHER_COMPANY2_PRODKUKT +OTHER_COMPANYn_PRODKUKT
Its just me, but:
I dont like this kind of “new” MS Stuff
And actually, how can you imagine that C# will be available for BeOS.
It will only be available on Linux/FreeBSD because too much people are using it. AND the biggest thing is that TOO much people are using in in professional SERVER area, where C# shall be used for(mainly I gues).
This all does not apply to BEOS. And thats why C# will NOT be available for BeOS, unless one fact (mentioned above) will change.
..and here I have to agree with Andreas: Microsoft wasn’t helpful to Java in it’s development. I’ll add more: Microsoft’s representatives were openly laughing at Java, at the whole concept. And now, they are doing it themselves.
That will send a strong signal to parts of the industry: Java is good, even MS is doing something similar.
BTW, a month ago I already saw the first .NET books on the bargain shelf of the biggest computer bookstore in Helsinki. That should mean something, I think. The same bookstore HYPED the .NET literature for a couple of months, and it’s still trying to improve the visibility of .NET and C#. But at no avail.
.NET is multiplatform? are those platforms Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP?
Java has had immense resource invested in it as a technology. We have many run time systems, many application libraries, major work in JIT technologies and much investment in teaching resources at universities.
M$ has tried to ignore all that and couldn’t, so now it picks the eyes out of the technology and relabels it with its own brand name. The similarities between Java and C# are striking – perhaps there is a case of the emperor’s new clothes here?
Doesn’t the simple fact that this is a MS diven technology worry some people?
P
For no other than the fact that it’s a Micro$oft product. I know that this sounds like zelot talk, but I can’t help it. Micro$oft and it’s endless “innovations” have crushed so many great technologies. They NEVER have an original idea. Never. Everything that Microsoft has, they have stolen fron someone. Be it Apple, the Unix comunity, or who ever. I understand that they are a company and their goal is to make money. But they are just greedy. Greedy to the point of being plain fucking evil. I don’t think they even want the money anymore. They just want more power. I hope that the recent *small* events are a sign that people are loosing faith and trust in them. I hope that Microsoft is at the peak of their power. Hopefully they have no where to go but down. I hope that Balmer will be killed in some grusom accident and dies a slow and painfull death.
Fuck Microsoft
Fuck Balmer
Fuck every MCSE in this country
</rant>
> Doesn’t the simple fact that this is a MS diven technology worry some people?
Perhaps. But doesn’t the simple fact that Java is a Sun driven technology worry you as well? Sun is at times horrible at mismanaging remarkable things, and they have even done it somewhat with Java. My point is not to say that MS is better than Sun, or vice versa; rather, my point is that one must exercise at least moderate caution in regards to any technology firmly within the clutch of any single company. And, frankly, .NET with its ECMA standardization seems a little bit nicer to me, all possibilities for proprietary extensions aside. Personally, I’d like to see IBM be given control of Java. At least they care about slightly more than incessant Microsoft bashing. =)
-Nick
The open source people seem to have embraced .NET much faster than Java. I was looking for a portable open-source JVM a couple of years ago and from those that were avaiable (Kaffe, Japhar and Electrical fire) none did the job. Kaffe was GPL (so forget about using it from a non-GPL app, even if it is under another open-source license ) and Japhar and Electrical fire were too buggy at that time. And that was many years after Java was first introduced. Now, shortly after .NET was announced to the general public we have two open-source .NET framework projects (mono and DotGNU) that advance much faster than any open-source java project.
“They NEVER have an original idea. Never. Everything that Microsoft has, they have stolen fron someone. Be it Apple, the Unix comunity, or who ever.”
And your saying no one else does this? Didn’t apple itself steal the entire gui idea from xerox (and a lot of its implementations). And if apple and ms weren’t so damn successful with guis do you seriously think Unix or its cheap knock offs would’ve implemented a gui? NO. Besides at least they didn’t blatantly steal any technologies (copied em damn closely in many cases) but if sun and redhat and all of them have their way ms’ code will be picked apart and stolen as they see fit (the real reason they want the government to force ms to open up its code imo).
mono? DotGNU? Where are they? And where will they be a year from now? And where will they be 2 years from now when all the pieces of the architecture NOT submitted to ECMA will change?
Do you really want to put your balls in Microsoft’s hands? Most don’t, most trust SUn more than Microsoft, and with good reason. Sure, some opensource people might try to play with .NET a little bit. I mean, come on, Miguel de Icaza? Did everybody already forget how full of shit this guy was at the times of KDE 1.x vs. Gnome 0.x, how he haressed people on #kde, Miguel the Icaza the newsgroups uber-jerk? I can see where mono is headed, but don’t forget to pull the water cos’ the stench will be horrid.
Better a nice cup of java.
>>And actually, how can you imagine that C# will be available for BeOS.
Hey, if it’s gonna be everywhere why not on BeOS!
Posted with Mozilla for BeOS…
ciao
yc
To those who criticize Micro$oft for doing a virtual machine after Sun already did Java/JVM, you should understand that by no means was the idea new with Sun. In 1980 I used the UCSD P-System, a completely portable cross-platform virtual machine for which there were Pascal and Fortran compilers, assemblers, and much more. It was quite nice.
Certainly UCSD wasn’t the first place this was done, either.
then Sun should implement and bundle C# and the CLR as well as Java on Solaris.
I don’t know… but it’s beginning to look a lot like SunDown.
Time will tell.
ciao
yc
“.NET is multiplatform? are those platforms Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP?”
No, .NET doesn’t work on Windows 95.
C#.NET is not intended for cross-platform as well as Java is not intended to run more than one language.
But Java does run dozens of languages and C#.NET may eventually run on various platforms.
Mono sucks. They could try to compile Java to machine language instead of giving alibi to Microsoft, that came up with a platform that runs only in windows (except win95).
C#.NET on various platforms is “HIGH HOPES”.
Java will still be around for a long time because it is free, it does more web-wise that C# and .NET do right now, it works on many platforms, there are many tools available to create Java apps with.
.NET on the other hand only works on MS Windows 98 and above, only has one tool at the moment (VS.NET), only works with one web server (IIS), and worst of all, is a Microsoft product.
I think .NET is a vast improvement over the Windows API, MFC, COM, etc. and C# is a huge improvement over VB (of course the same can be said of a turkey sandwich), but it doesn’t offer me anything over what Java has offered for a very long time so technically, I see no reason to switch.
Financially, I can see a huge reason not to switch.
Cringely did an nice piece on c-sharp vs java
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20011101.html
basically says c-sharp is all the good stuff about java; makes the improvements that sun should have made but didn’t
> They NEVER have an original idea. Never. Everything that Microsoft has, they have stolen fron someone.
Hmm. Sounds a lot like the open source community at times…. =)
-Nick
>Hmm. Sounds a lot like the open source community at times…. =)
every time??
it’s the companies that innovate and steal, open source just steals
My comment on Micro$oft stealing something needs to be clarified. Being “inspired” by and stealing are two *completely* different things.
Micro$oft: Wow this is a great idea. We need this. We want this. Lets start a FUD storm to discredit the original author/provider. People will fall for it. We are Micro$oft. If we tell the masses that this is our idea they will believe it. They will use only our shitty implementation and no one elses. Ohh, and we’ll discredit the original author if he does not play nice with us
Allmost-every-one-else: Wow this is a great idea. I would like to work with this. The original author has some good ideas. I think that if I make a small change/addition here, it will make for a better product. I will re-implement this my self giving proper credit to the “inventor” and release it along side it, rather than trying to crush it.
I realise that I’ve oversimplified thing *ALOT*. But the general idea is there. I hate to sound like a Star Trek fan (which I’m not), but micro$oft truly are the Borg. If you don’t want to play with them, they will simply wear you down and force you out of the market place. 30 some odd billion $$$ in liquid assets….<lost track of though>
…like Microsoft’s new approach to the .Net MyServices issues.
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/04/15/020415hnsecurity….
ciao
yc
>>Hmm. Sounds a lot like the open source community at times…. =)
>every time??
>it’s the companies that innovate and steal, open source just steals
Some inovations MS has stolen from open source:
* Kerberos
* Themes
* StackGuard
(and many more)
Face it when it comes to software design everyone steals (and there is nothing good with that as long as we just steal the good ideas and not the bad ones).
“Talent borrows, but genius steals.” — Oscar Wilde
As well as the c-sharp/.net threat to java in web apps surely it faces just as big a threat in mozilla as a write once run anywhere environment?
In my comment (14092) I ofcourse meant nothing WRONG with that. (The sentence doesn’t realy make sense otherwise).
“.Net” will be about as successful as Microsoft’s “Bob” interface. Or their lame “PocketPC/WINCE devices”. Or directX Just cause they are Microsoft doesn’t mean they can get away with everything. I think people aren’t going to want to willingly let MSFT pull the wool over thei eyes AGAIN.
One obvious problem with server side “.net”: It only runs on Win 2000. So, immediately, you limit yourself to slow, sucky, expensive, sucky, crash-prone, low-security servers.
Right on! That’s exactly what they did with directory services, back when Novell provided the first DS-enabled server platform. NO chance MS is gonna do that (because they couldn’t engineer anything above their shitty NT domains). Then, in 1996, they decide that directory services are actually a cool thing that the enterprise customer needs. So, start the FUD. Four years later, when their directory services soution started to suck a bit less ass than it did earlier, and now it seems it’s the best innovation after sliced bread.
Meanwhile, Novell’s NDS (actually, called e-Directory nowadays) is still the most solid, most scalable, most feature-rich and standards-complialnt solution. Yahoo, CNN and RedHat use it, so Novell must be doing something right.