Re: Comparison of Java, C# for development on Windows and future for them

Hello Simon Lenn. I use unixen a lot so I thought I might clarify some things from my perspective.

Simon Lenn <simonlenn_at_yahoo.com> wrote:

> Cross platform to me today does not have much of a meaning with
> practically over 70% of servers and 98% client computers in the world
> running Windows.

Well there's more than just corporate servers and clients in the world. A lot of big business machines run some flavor of unix. IBM likes advertising with some of those. A single server from for instance IBM again can act as a host to tens of thousands of clients at once. This skews the number in the servers area just a bit.

Often specialised devices are more likely to run a flavor of unix. Like perhaps the rebranded SGI boxes I saw serving as number crunchers for an MRI scanner.

> The death of UNIX is imminent Linux will kill and
> bury UNIX.

That would be strange. Linux is a unix variant itself[1]. Also, Mac OS X seems to be doing quite well on the desktop, and that's a rather traditional looking unix really. [2]

> I would be least surprised if MS already does not have a
> LINUX strategy the core

MS has an *anti* linux statagy. Technically they might be said to be losing ground, though not at any perceptible rate for the outside world.

>.Net, SQL, Exchange and Office , VS would
> already been in the Linux mint now.

.Net is covered by Ximian. SQL is not an MS invention, and SQL support on unix platforms is pervasive. Office compatibility is offered by multiple unix and linux vendors and project groups. Visual Studio is "Not The Unix Way", though there are several other ides available. Finally Exchange is the only thing that isn't pervasive on unix. Unix people like to feel they have superior tools to that. ;-)

> With all pervasive MS presence
> makes sense to stick to MS if that is your primary deployment platform
> if Windows is your primary platform and you are going Java you will
> face more interoperability problems than any advantages.

Sure, but if your clientele is the world over, you appear to be advocating the exclusion of 30% of your client base on servers, just as a start, even if your numbers are correct.

Not to flame you or anything, but that doesn't sound like such a great idea.

> Today C# as all the features of Java and C# as already been submitted
> to ECMA standards body whereas Sun as not submitted Java to ECMA.

Sun certainly *submitted* java to a standards body, then retracted that submission again. There's nothing stopping MS from trying the same.

> Compare language feature by feature C# as everything Java as and more.
> The best thing I like of C# is the ease of programming, platform
> integration, and C# SDK like Java is available for free download and
> the best part of C# I like is it does not have performance issues of
> Java.

If you say so. Isn't C# supposed to be a VM based langauge too? In that case implementations of Java and C# ought to roughly be equally fast in the long run.

> I cannot say anything else. I suggest to people posting further please
> post something sensible than just noise.

Very wise of you.

read you soon,

        Kim Bruning

[1] Some purists might object to this phrasing. If so :%s/a unix variant/a unix compatible os/g . If you don't understand that, you have no right to object ;-)

[2] For some definition of "traditional looking", probably

    containing references to NeXT. Received on Fri Jan 10 2003 - 10:43:53 CST