4 ms·

I guess I'll be the lone dissenting opinion and actually favor Java over C#. Java has an extensive library of open source software, which makes it, as they say

by smakz 17y ago

I guess I'll be the lone dissenting opinion and actually favor Java over C#. Java has an extensive library of open source software, which makes it, as they say, more of a platform then a language. From hadoop, to tomcat, to jetty, to hibernate, to spring, to c3p0 (and many, many, many more), you have all the tools you'll ever need to do 95% of the coding work. I definitely get the love around here for dynamically typed languages, but I've never been sufficiently motivated to switch to ruby. The whole philosophy of ruby, "convention over configuration" is applicable to ANY language, including Java. Java's EJB spec was monstrous and XML config file infested, but I've gone through many projects in Java without a single XML config file and following the philosophy of convention over configuration, and it's been great. As to .NET, I would never use it. Never want to get in the business of paying for licenses, not just .NET, but it ties you to Windows server boxes and Windows development boxes.

rfreytag 17y ago
As regards your last sentence, MS licensing does definitely limit your ability to scale out (over multiple servers, see http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001279.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001279.html). Mono might just save MS from losing the server mindshare entirely if it can talk itself into letting go of the license more than even the community "promise." I have been pleasantly surprised to find C#/.NET is quite good. Please do force MS' hand by supporting the alternatives. The more good alternatives there are to .NET including improvements to Java, Scala or what have you, the more likely MS will do the smart long-term thing and loosen its licensing restrictions. (please do say why you might disagree - I'm genuinely curious)
- gaius 17y ago
  They have completely misunderstood what Markus is trying to do there. He wants a big box so he can do big joins because what he cares about is being able to match people across arbitrary criteria not, at sharding fanboys would do, separating them into separate pools by surname or a hashing function and then you never meet your perfect match because her records are in a different shard to yours... A modern romcom could be written about that.
joechung 17y ago
The article made a point of distinguishing the comparison between Java and C# as languages, not between Java and .NET as platforms.
- abalashov 17y ago
  Be that as it may, that seems like an awfully artificial cop-out. "Oracle's the best database ever!" "It costs half a million dollars!" "I made a specific point of distinguishing its technological merits as a relational database backend, not the dollars involved in purchasing it."
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    There's a lot of contexts where cost/benefit is not so much a cop-out as it is a more relevant point! (Not an Oracle advocate by any means!)
    - abalashov 17y ago
      I agree. I meant that it is not an effective reply to its parent.
nollidge 17y ago
Not sure why you brought it up, but convention-over-configuration is characteristic of Rails, not Ruby.
- xtho 17y ago
  I'd say the ideas were there before RoR. E.g. setup.rb (just to name a simple example) works with zero configuration but you have to put your files into the right directories.

by smakz 17y ago

rfreytag 17y ago

As regards your last sentence, MS licensing does definitely limit your ability to scale out (over multiple servers, see http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001279.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001279.html). Mono might just save MS from losing the server mindshare entirely if it can talk itself into letting go of the license more than even the community "promise." I have been pleasantly surprised to find C#/.NET is quite good. Please do force MS' hand by supporting the alternatives. The more good alternatives there are to .NET including improvements to Java, Scala or what have you, the more likely MS will do the smart long-term thing and loosen its licensing restrictions. (please do say why you might disagree - I'm genuinely curious)

gaius 17y ago
They have completely misunderstood what Markus is trying to do there. He wants a big box so he can do big joins because what he cares about is being able to match people across arbitrary criteria not, at sharding fanboys would do, separating them into separate pools by surname or a hashing function and then you never meet your perfect match because her records are in a different shard to yours... A modern romcom could be written about that.

joechung 17y ago

The article made a point of distinguishing the comparison between Java and C# as languages, not between Java and .NET as platforms.

abalashov 17y ago
Be that as it may, that seems like an awfully artificial cop-out. "Oracle's the best database ever!" "It costs half a million dollars!" "I made a specific point of distinguishing its technological merits as a relational database backend, not the dollars involved in purchasing it."
- stcredzero 17y ago
  There's a lot of contexts where cost/benefit is not so much a cop-out as it is a more relevant point! (Not an Oracle advocate by any means!)
  - abalashov 17y ago
    I agree. I meant that it is not an effective reply to its parent.

nollidge 17y ago

Not sure why you brought it up, but convention-over-configuration is characteristic of Rails, not Ruby.

xtho 17y ago
I'd say the ideas were there before RoR. E.g. setup.rb (just to name a simple example) works with zero configuration but you have to put your files into the right directories.