Move from .Net to Java?

krazyklown

Hi Guys,

Just wondering what the general consensus would be with regard to the pros and cons of working with the Java stack. I am currently gainfully employed in a company working on the .Net stack and feel though looking at the job sites that maybe I would have more career opportunities on the Java side. Just wondering, from a Java perspective, what are the pros / cons of working in the Java world? Be very interested to hear from people that have worked in both.

Thanks,
KK

Sheeps

I'd be really interested in what someone who has a good few years commercial development experience in both thinks too. I can't for the life of me understand why someone would chose the .NET stack over Java. But maybe that's just because all of the code that I've seen written in ASP and C# has been hideous. Maybe I'm missing the nice design tools, conventions, patterns, frameworks and plugins.

Galway K9

Sheeps wrote: »

I'd be really interested in what someone who has a good few years commercial development experience in both thinks too. I can't for the life of me understand why someone would chose the .NET stack over Java. But maybe that's just because all of the code that I've seen written in ASP and C# has been hideous. Maybe I'm missing the nice design tools, conventions, patterns, frameworks and plugins.

I went from c# to java for 4 years and now back to c#. I'd give anything to go back to java.

Better language, more resources, far more career prospects, multiplatform. I miss you Oracle land

Idleater

Not answering the question asked, but I switched languages a couple of years ago. In my case I had always worked at Java 0.7 to Java ee, and in several business domains. In looking for a change, in my mind I was going to either to try something full web like nodejs html5 etc or what I ended up choosing, Python.

In reality after x years experience you know how to conceptualise a program, listen to business requirements, build objects, talk to databases etc. Switching languages or stacks is in reality changing syntax. You can probably convert diy style in your own time and see what the basic transition is like. Assuming your new opportunity isn't a solo project, and you are allowed the time to work with the new team to pick up the quirks of each language then I can attest to it being doable and even enjoyable.

krazyklown

Idleater wrote: »

Not answering the question asked, but I switched languages a couple of years ago. In my case I had always worked at Java 0.7 to Java ee, and in several business domains. In looking for a change, in my mind I was going to either to try something full web like nodejs html5 etc or what I ended up choosing, Python.

In reality after x years experience you know how to conceptualise a program, listen to business requirements, build objects, talk to databases etc. Switching languages or stacks is in reality changing syntax. You can probably convert diy style in your own time and see what the basic transition is like. Assuming your new opportunity isn't a solo project, and you are allowed the time to work with the new team to pick up the quirks of each language then I can attest to it being doable and even enjoyable.

Cool, i agree and think that good developers should be reasonably comfortable switching languages, I am trying to determine that my thinking just isnt a case of the grass being greener on the other side. I think i more less 'fell' into the .Net side but now feel that there are much greater opportunities in Java. I am curious to see what devs in Java see as the limitations there and if there is something on the .Net side that they would like to be available to them.

Idleater

At the risk of sounding like "they're all the same", in effect they are fundamentally. Different companies use different stacks for different reasons. Knowing the business reasons is just as much a part of it as writing protected void x instead of def x. Trying to convince a Microsoft house to switch to java, you might as well talk to the wall, but hey, perhaps you have a good knowledge of how to run a project like x when a,b and c went wrong and that might be as useful.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't expect to transition overnight and be delivering enterprise Java within a week, you will have to make concessions and rely on someone gambling on your ability to deliver. There is a lot more to this than just x or y languages. Convincing a prospective employer might be harder than learning the new language :-)

Talisman

Idleater wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't expect to transition overnight and be delivering enterprise Java within a week, you will have to make concessions and rely on someone gambling on your ability to deliver. There is a lot more to this than just x or y languages. Convincing a prospective employer might be harder than learning the new language :-)

Some employers actively seek candidates with C# experience for Java roles and vice versa.

Aswerty

I'm a big fan of C# and the ASP.NET MVC framework - it's also the stack I'm working on at the moment (by choice). I did Java back in college and when I landed my first job they decided that they'd rather have me working in the .Net space so I end up jumping over to it. This was about 5 years ago. Going from Java to C# was not even a change of syntax. They are about as similar as any two languages can be. Although C# has had some functional aspects to it for years now that Java has just introduced (e.g. Lambdas, LINQ, etc.) so if I was to move from C# to anything older than Java 8 (at least I think it's 8) I'd be pretty frustrated since LINQ is integral to modern C#.

One warning though. If you haven't changed languages in a professional context before the C# to Java switch isn't a great one from a learning perspective since they are so similar. So don't assume your next language switch will be as straight forward. I switched from C# to work on node.js for the guts of a year and the differences were pretty dramatic. So I'd take the advice above, that changing languages is a walk in the park, with a pinch of salt.

For me the main differences in the Java world are that it is multi platform and it has an ecosystem supported by a large number of organisations. Whereas in the .Net world you work on Windows and if Microsoft has a decent product/software in a particular area there isn't going to be much competition. Of course having go-to software instead of a plethora of products to pick from can be a blessing as well as a curse. If you want to work on a Linux stack Java is obviously much better suited.

Anyone who has issues with the .Net stack (at least in the web dev side of things) has either encountered:

• ASP.NET Web Forms and not MVC,
• a horrible legacy application,
• or has a bone to pick when it comes to Microsoft.

If the job market looked more lucrative in the Java world I can definitely understand someone wanting to switch stacks. The big challenge to doing that is having to build experience in the Java ecosystem. Because as we all know employers want devs to hit the ground running and if you haven't used Hibernate, Spring, Oracle DB, etc. an employer is probably not going to be as keen taking you on even if you've used the .Net equivalent. So I imagine taking on a personal project - even if it's just a Twitter clone - using the above tech (or whatever is most common in job listings) would be a good segue into the Java world.

Eclipse is a **** show so have a look at something like IntelliJ (or whatever the Jet Brains Java IDE is). Because as much as a resource hog Visual Studio is, it's still a damn good heavy weight IDE.

Also remember HR departments won't understand the value of years of .Net experience when applying to a Java role so make sure whatever opportunities you go for don't stonewall you at the point in the process due to ignorance.

Just don't coming running back to .Net when you encounter you're first EnterpriseFactoryHelperManagerConfig class! At that point you have already succumbed to the dark side.

kayos

Why would any one move to Java? Honestly Scala all the way .

L.Jenkins

kayos wrote: »

Why would any one move to Java? Honestly Scala all the way .

I've had a look and it seems that Scala can't decide if it wants to be C++ or Java.

Berserker

Aswerty wrote: »

Anyone who has issues with the .Net stack (at least in the web dev side of things) has either encountered:

• ASP.NET Web Forms and not MVC,
• a horrible legacy application,

A heavy majority of experienced .Net developers will have come across the above. I've come across some awful rubbish in MVC applications too. Some people feel the need to take the pattern, which is quite simple to understand and introduce their own ideas into the game to 'make the application their own', which results in some 'interesting' results.

OP, there is nothing wrong with gaining experience in the Java world. Some employers will look at your .Net and Java experience as a good thing, as noted by another poster. It is unclear how many years experience you have from your post but you may, probably will, have to take a hit in terms of salary, if you move to a new company to build up your knowledge and experience in the Java world.

Aswerty

Berserker wrote: »

A heavy majority of experienced .Net developers will have come across the above. I've come across some awful rubbish in MVC applications too. Some people feel the need to take the pattern, which is quite simple to understand and introduce their own ideas into the game to 'make the application their own', which results in some 'interesting' results.

No doubt. I just wanted to add a counter balance that most hate for the .Net space is often due to some of the older platforms and/or poor implementations (particularly from companies transitioning from Web Forms). Whereas the current situation is pretty attractive for any greenfield projects.