ansaurus

Question

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

Answer 1

+9 A:

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!

John Sonmez 2009-10-20 14:17:55

Anonymous delegates and lambdas would be fantastic - an anonymous classes like "new Delegate() { public void Invoke(String s){ return s+s; } }" just isn't usable compared to "s => s+s".

Callum Rogers 2009-10-20 14:45:31

This is as far as I can see syntactic sugar around existing facilities? Is this right?

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen 2009-10-20 15:27:18

I don't think it need function pointers. What it needs is (mostly) the current semantics without all the boilerplate.

Tom Hawtin - tackline 2009-10-20 15:30:21

You could simulate this with classes and interfaces, but it is more cumbersome, isn't it?

_NT 2009-10-20 16:03:02

@John: I too have long lamented the absence of function pointers/callbacks - you might be interested in my callback solution at http://www.softwaremonkey.org/Code/Callback

Software Monkey 2009-10-20 22:58:02

Answer 2

+10 A:

Just going off the cuff, I think the biggest thing Java 7 needs that everyone is lamenting the lack of is closures.

MattC 2009-10-20 14:18:05

Let's hope that they will consider them. Any ideas on how to influence such decisions?! :)

_NT 2009-10-20 16:02:16

I hope they don't. If you want closures use Groovy or what have thee. I would like them to add CICE+ARM

mlk 2009-10-20 16:13:32

Adding closures to our existing code base would be far better than rewriting everything just to take advantage of one language feature.

MattC 2009-10-21 13:37:50

Answer 3

+20 A:

In my experience, Java vs. .Net is more of a business decision than a technical one. Shops with MS experience trend towards .Net and shops with Java experience trend towards Java & OSS. I've seen little evidence of people switching based upon language features. On the other hand, I've seen shops heavily tilt towards one platform b/c of one or two key employees they wanted to hire being knowledgeable in that area.

jsight 2009-10-20 14:19:39

I work on .NET projects and still use lots of OSS. I don't think it should be attached to just the java side.

Mike Two 2009-10-20 14:30:14

@Mike - You are, of course, correct that there are .Net projects that use lots of OSS (I'm on one now... not as much OSS as most Java projects that I've been involved with, but definitely a significant amount). Having said that, as a general rule (lots of exceptions), I've seen much less in .Net projects than in Java. For example, I've seen server side guys in .Net who have never even heard of a logging framework (they reimplemented their own... badly). I've yet to meet one in the Java world thats not familiar with at least 1.

jsight 2009-10-20 15:10:17

@John - I think in some ways, you have proven my point. Java w/ generics was released in September of 2004. C# with generics was released w/ Visual Studio 2005 in October of 2005. There was never a time when C# had generics and Java didn't.

jsight 2009-10-20 15:13:13

The single feature that unambiguously determines that .NET is unusable for us, is that we do not deploy on Windows.

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen 2009-10-20 15:28:24

@jsight - I agree. It is true that you are more likely to find OSS in a Java shop. I just thought your answer made it sound like you would only find OSS on a java project. I still voted for your answer because I agree that it is more of a business decision in most cases. Admittedly I'm picking on a detail that does not detract from the quality of the answer.

Mike Two 2009-10-20 15:29:12

@Mike - NP... I can see how it could be read that way.

jsight 2009-10-20 15:32:04

Perhaps not shops, but there are people who do actually that. And shops many times make evaluations based on the skill set that they have in conjunction with support in terms of IDEs, frameworks, libraries, etc. So I believe there is some minor degree of influence...

_NT 2009-10-20 15:59:54

@jsight "they reimplemented their own... badly. I've yet to meet one in the Java world thats not familiar with at least 1". Are you arguing that Java developers are more intillegent than C#/.NET? The big java logging frameworks are also ported to .NET (see nlog, log4net). Regarding generics, Java does not truly support Generics at all. Generics support is handled and removed at compile time so problems are encountered around reflection and performance.

No longer a user 2009-10-20 19:09:38

@NoLonger - No, I'm not arguing about intelligence... just that the .Net developers that I have run into (quite a few for a while) were less knowledgeable of existing frameworks than the Java devs. I was also aware of the .Net logging frameworks (and had used one extensively) at the time. But this is more conjecture than anything else... ymmv. As to generics, it's not really fair to say that Java doesn't have them. It does... they are just implemented really badly (erasure instead of reification). That comment would make more sense if the one it responded to wasn't deleted. :)

jsight 2010-09-07 13:27:41

Answer 4

+6 A:

I think, choice between Java and C# is not a question of language features, but a question of platform and ecosystem choice.

So, I doubt that any new syntactic sugar in Java or C# can lead to a significant amount of switchers between the platforms.

After all, JVM world has Scala and many language-sensitive developers are using it in some way.

Vanya 2009-10-20 14:22:00

Answer 5

+6 A:

Another one I would like is some equivalent to LINQ. I noticed how much I actually depend on the ability to use LINQ when I tried to do a top coder competition and realized they only support .NET 2.0. Once you get used to using LINQ to solve problem and make it part of your regular programming vocabulary it is very difficult to not see problems in that light. It is akin to using generics and then not being able to use generic.

John Sonmez 2009-10-20 14:23:14

You can use at least LINQ to Objects on .NET 2 without too much effort: http://www.albahari.com/nutshell/linqbridge.aspx.

Joey 2009-10-22 11:04:45

Answer 6

+9 A:

I'll also give one answer the other way around. C# needs an enumeration implementation like Java has. Java's enumerations rock!

Let me add anonymous overrides to this list also. Sorry to go off topic, but C# needs the ability to anonymously override methods. I have been switching back and forth between Java and C#, and I have to say for unit testing legacy code, there is nothing better than anonymous class overriding.

John Sonmez 2009-10-20 14:25:06

C# enumerations are completely type safe base types, Java enums full fledges classes with a nice `const` preset syntax. C#'s enums will be far more performant as they are completely value based.

Dykam 2009-10-20 14:31:32

What? Why is the Enumerator class better? All I've experienced of it is just a verbose way of doing it the C# way.

Callum Rogers 2009-10-20 14:51:01

The enumeration class in Java allows you to have methods and treat it just like any other class. This is really useful for giving functionality to your enumeration. It also makes a really easy singleton.

John Sonmez 2009-10-20 15:01:21

@John:it's benefit is small. enumerations in c# is as fast as an integer variable (it's integer by default but you can define it as a byte for example)

sirmak 2009-11-20 19:18:16

@Dykam man if you are worried about performance at that level aren't you more concerned with all C#'s basic types being objects? Or, if you assume the compiler is smart enough to optimize one, why not the other?

Bill K 2010-09-10 21:46:55

@Bill K: Only API wise all base types are objects. But all value types which, again, only inherit from object API wise, are no objects on runtime. They live on the stack and behave the same as C++ stackallocated class-instances. That is, by value, and not by reference.

Dykam 2010-09-11 07:03:07

Answer 7

A:

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

Aaron Digulla 2009-10-20 14:25:37

Answer 8

+3 A:

Properties!

Anonymous objects are nice too

JonoW 2009-10-20 14:27:55

Java HAS properties already (but they probably are not what you think of :) )

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen 2009-10-20 15:31:33

I don't really get `properties` As I understand they have to be declared public in first place right? if you declare your attributes as public in Java you'll get the same result `public String name; employee.name` I know you can also "add" actual code in the get/set but that's discouraged.

OscarRyz 2009-10-21 01:27:23

@Oscar - Properties are simply syntactic sugar for get/set methods (and don't have to be public). It is not like declaring a variable public as the property can do stuff (just like any other method). I use to be dead against them but after using them for a bit they do make the code a little bit more readable.

mlk 2009-10-21 08:55:50

No, you can have any access modifier on C# properties. You can also have different access modifiers for the get and set parts of the property. E.g. a public getter but a private setter. Not sure why you say adding code in getters/setters is bad, there are plenty of examples where this is a good idea (authentication, logging). In C#, if you don't need to add any custom code, you can use automatic properties, e.g. public String name { get; set; } .No more complex than a public variable, and if you need to add code to it later, you can expand it.

JonoW 2009-10-21 08:56:43

In general, the need for properties implies you might be programming better. Not always, but I can tell you for certain that if you always add setters whenever you create a property you are doing it very wrong. Getters--meh, sometimes you need them.

Bill K 2010-09-10 21:41:14

Answer 9

+10 A:

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.

Konamiman 2009-10-20 14:27:57

+1 - I missed the same aspects.

Daniel May 2009-10-20 14:41:43

Explicit exceptions (checked versus unchecked) is a big issue of debate. Many loathe checked exceptions. Could you tell more about why you missed them? I'm curious to hear it from one who tried both seriously.

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen 2009-10-20 20:36:28

I missed them because it forced me to write self-documented code. When you deal with exception management code, you always know in advance which exceptions you can encounter, which reduces the risk of application-wide-unexpected-exceptions. In .NET, you can only hope that the developer of the library you are using was kind enough to document all possible exceptions thrown by the public members.

Konamiman 2009-10-21 07:10:57

The point of the .NET way is that you shouldn't have to document the exceptions. All exceptions thrown are by definition unexpected. I'm not saying it's better or worse than Java, just that when used correctly it makes sense.

Christian Hayter 2009-10-22 10:42:35

checked exception is a bad idea. Experiences shows that it seems good for small projects, but a disaster in enterprise ones

sirmak 2009-11-20 19:23:34

Answer 10

+27 A:

As a .NET/C# developer here are the missing features that annoy me. This list in no particular order - just as thoughts come to mind:

The Java library is too small. For common things I have to choose between 5 competing open source products because the base library is lacking in so many ways.
This is an Object Oriented programming language right? Why in the heck do primitive types not inherit from "object"?
Pointers
Lambdas
Closures
Partial Classes and to a lesser extent partial Methods
Real support for Generics
Using statements and Dispose - this was a real WTF for me. You really have to explicitly close connections in try/catch blocks. Poor Java guys!
Yield return would be nice
Unsigned integers - again WTF? I have to use number types larger than I need for what purpose again?
In Java you can return from final blocks of try/catch. A co-worker confused the hell out of me for hours by introducing a bug this way. This behavior should be prohibited as in C#.

I rarely have to use Java and when I do, I have all sorts of WTF moments.

Edit: I Removed for-each comment based on the fact it is no longer a missing Java feature since 1.5.

No longer a user 2009-10-20 14:33:25

I would also add lack of a foreach keyword by replacing it with an Iterator class that just increases code verbosity when it isn't needed. And LINQ.

Callum Rogers 2009-10-20 14:48:04

Would you mind explaining 12? I've not done anything major with C# but how does it foreach differ from Java for(Object : collection)?

mlk 2009-10-20 15:01:14

I would also add extension methods, anonymous types and dynamic types (C# 4.0)

Thomas Levesque 2009-10-20 15:50:57

There is a foreach now (not called 'foreach', but the same functionality) So what if it uses Iterable Objects, it serves the same purpose. You can Yield (Thread.yield()). Having to close connections / sockets is a WTF for you? Really? Why would you want to return from the finally block? Seriously, I don't get half of your arguement.

amischiefr 2009-10-20 15:57:25

This list is quite comprehensive. With regards to the 'WTF' moments, these exist in all languages, including C# imho.

_NT 2009-10-20 16:01:22

As a few of you indicate, I see that as of J2SE 5.0 "for" can be used multiple ways which includes the same behavior as c#'s foreach. So ignore that.

No longer a user 2009-10-20 18:57:43

amischiefr, your tone feels argumentative; why is that? This is not a religious language war. Thread.yield() has abosolutely nothing to do with the yield keyword http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9k7k7cf0%28VS.80%29.aspx."Why would you want to return from the finally block?" - I don't. In java you can and in C# you cannot. Buggy code can result from returning in a finally block.

No longer a user 2009-10-20 19:02:27

I think lack of value types and properties should be on this list. What do you say?

Joren 2009-10-20 19:11:37

The Java library is too _small_? That's news to me :)

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen 2009-10-20 22:57:11

Ma teacher told me that Pointers are baaad ;)

tulskiy 2009-10-21 00:40:55

Piligrin: That's why you wrap their usage in a `baaad { }` block, erm, I mean an `unsafe { }` block

Joey 2009-10-22 10:51:52

Please don't mix pointers into my higher level language.

seanmonstar 2009-10-23 18:36:00

What you need is **Groovy**

OscarRyz 2009-10-23 20:33:15

Very true, Java has some short comings. But it's always easier to be the guy learning from someone's mistakes (C#) than the guy first implementing the language. Let's be honest C# is a port of Java to .NET. We could talk about how insanely ugly Visual Basic is.

Richard Clayton 2010-04-28 11:24:52

Having competing Open-Source-Libraries for a problem is a big advantage!

Mnementh 2010-04-28 11:27:05

@Richard - I would say that C# is a response to Java, not a port of Java. In many ways C# draws from a lot of different languages. I don't see that as a bad thing. From a technical perspective, I think C# is rather leading Java in features now rather than the reverse, incorporating more and more features from dynamic languages. Java, too, is morphing but, from an outsider's perspective, more slowly than C#.

tvanfosson 2010-05-04 12:18:06

"Please don't mix pointers into my higher level language." ---> (continued: So that I can never do low level stuff the easy way, instead use JNI or some other invention to read and write to a simple bitmap.) <--- Pointers are not overused in C# (actually they are highly underused) because they can only be used inside unsafe blocks, and unsafe blocks need to be enabled using a compiler switch and there are more restrictions: they can't be fields of classes, etc, Java can do the same.

Pop Catalin 2010-06-08 19:59:14

Pointers are not a crucial part of C#. It is actually more hidden, but still available to attract C++ developers. C# code that use pointers, must be contained is a special block with "unsafe code". Standard C# code does not use pointers. The memory in .NET is managed and controlled by the framework.

awe 2010-09-06 09:32:46

Answer 11

+9 A:

Less heinous XML parsing and manipulation tools. Doing anything with XML in Java sucks.

Matt Ball 2009-10-20 14:33:50

Ahhh. so true! When you can, use JSON instead.

Software Monkey 2009-10-20 23:05:44

Since when is JSON easy to generate in Java?

Matt Ball 2009-10-21 21:30:57

Answer 12

+6 A:

Momentum. I have done a lot of development on both platforms. I'm enjoying the .NET side more because of the way the C# language is evolving. Java's evolution seems to be more a reaction to C# than an actual vision. So I think the best thing for Java to do is ignore .NET and create something new of its own.

Mike Two 2009-10-20 14:34:09

Curious about the down vote. I think you're well within your rights to disagree and vote down. Not required to comment, but just wondering.

Mike Two 2009-10-20 15:40:24

How can you say that when C# was largely inspired by Java? At worst, it is co-evolution, isn't it?

_NT 2009-10-20 16:06:27

@ _NT - Agreed that it started that way, but then C# seemed to take the lead in terms of speed of evolution. It was first with generics and attributes just to name 2. So I think it is more in the driver's seat. C# is now influenced by many other languages and programming paradigms such as functional programming and dynamic languages. Those influences are not from Java anymore. After the initial release of C# I can't think of a feature that Java added before C#. But of course the core part of C# is inspired (or even copied) from Java.

Mike Two 2009-10-20 16:17:17

Java's evolution now might be reactionary to C#'s, but I beg to differ that this was the case a couple of years ago.

Richard Clayton 2010-04-28 11:11:50

@Richard - I didn't say it has always been reactionary. Clearly it can't have been for it's entire lifetime.

Mike Two 2010-04-28 11:49:47

Answer 13

+12 A:

in no particular order:

function pointers (delegates); the whole passing interfaces around thing is stupid
real generics; what's the point of having type safe generics if the compiler can't even hold the meta data through a unit's compilation?
ui speed; all the self-drawing ui libraries are very slow compared to native controls wrapped in "managed" libraries, not to mention that microsoft's self-drawn ui is hardware accelerated through direct3d
an yield return construct; c# is so user friendly in this it's crazy
operator overloading
linq; just cuz its so addicting
properties; more synctatic sugar you get addicted to
better interop with native code; c#'s p/invoke and native com support makes interop so easy compared to jni -.-
first class value types; this goes hand in hand with real generics, having generic lists that never box/unbox in c# is part of why c# is faster than java.

and i'd say this is the most important one:

a responsive, informative debugger; nothing can even come close to visual studio right now

Blindy 2009-10-20 14:36:42

About debugger and visual studio in general - try IntelliJ Idea (it's opensource now), VS is nothing but a fancy notepad compared to this program. I agree that self-drawing UI is slow, but it's the best solution for cross-platform development.

tulskiy 2009-10-21 00:37:28

@Piligrim: Are you really trying to say the .NET/C# debugger is out of date? Have you used it?

280Z28 2009-10-23 18:40:46

Answer 14

+5 A:

I think, you should consider swithcing this holywar from "Java vs C#" to "JVM vs CLR", because JVM is (in the last years — mostly) not only Java, but also Scala, Groovy, Clojure, JRuby, Jython, and dozen of JVM-languages.

folone 2009-10-20 14:39:56

Doesn't this apply to CLR languages too?

_NT 2009-10-20 14:48:49

I found another one: http://www.jabaco.org/

yelinna 2009-10-20 15:44:00

@nt ofcourse it does.

folone 2009-10-22 15:39:17

@yellina funny, lol

folone 2009-10-22 15:42:23

@nt I mean, the author tries to compare [probably] the best clr language with [IMHO] not the best jvm language. Which is not really "fair", I suppose.

folone 2009-10-26 08:19:59

Agree with folone. Clojure and Scala are far better than Java, and I would argue that Clojure is far more powerful than C#.

Richard Clayton 2010-04-28 11:10:24

Answer 15

A:

I think it depends on bussiness decisions, not the languages themselves. But I really really really love C# lambdas and curry :D :D

http://mikeomatic.net/?p=82

yelinna 2009-10-20 15:37:35

Answer 16

A:

a map({codeblock}) which runs over anything iterable would be nice. And filter too. And being able to return multiple values easily from a method.

(a,b,c) = getThreeValues();

(would assign the individual variables a, b and c).

Actually I just think they should have Haskell as a supported scripting language on the JVM :D

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen 2009-10-20 22:59:05

Answer 17

+2 A:

Continuations, like Scala (on top of the rest) would be good too, for agents development.

Nikolaos 2009-10-23 17:40:28

Answer 18

+2 A:

Support to run over CLR (and vice versa perhaps for JVM) without IKVM and other such layers.

Scooterville 2009-10-23 18:30:47

Answer 19

A:

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.

sirmak 2009-11-20 19:58:21

Answer 20

A:

linq, lambda, anonymous types

Omu 2009-11-20 20:04:03

Answer 21

+1 A:

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

SteJav 2009-12-31 09:03:11

Answer 22

A:

Let's be clear that we need to distinguish between Java and the JVM. I actually switched from C# to Java, but I admit it was not because of Java's amazing language features! In my very humble opinion, C# is the better language, and CLR is the perhaps a more elegant VM. However, even with Mono, you're not writing applications that run everywhere!

I think the greatest argument for Java is the amazing community it has. This is where the cutting edge technology is being developed, not at Sun (now Oracle). The Java community has consistently been the leader in developing Enterprise technologies. For instance, how long did it take Microsoft to provide a DI Framework? Where's AOP in .NET? When I start a .NET project, my foundation is Spring.NET, a Java port. When I need ORM, it's NHibernate. Need a testing framework? NUnit. I realize there are other OSS projects for the .NET platform, but their numbers and support from Microsoft are laughable compared to the Java community.

Richard Clayton 2010-04-28 11:19:20

Answer 23

A:

They should start by fixing the Calendar/Date related classes, even that seems too much to ask.

hawk 2010-06-06 16:59:54

Answer 24

A:

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?

Bill K 2010-09-10 21:32:26

Because being a "n00b" language as you call it, will actually hurt Java not help it in any way. Lack of modern features do make Java easier to learn, but also make Java applications harder to write (due to the lack of modern features). It's like Pascal vs C in the old days, Pascal was used for learning (by n00bs) but C kept gaining ground because it was more "powerful", until Pascal faded away.

Pop Catalin 2010-09-10 22:14:12

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

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