Ask HN: Do you use either C# or Java in your professional work?

[servlate]

I am curious to know how many people are using Java (and C#) as their primary bread-maker.

I want to get a reality check because from what I see on here, it seems like only a handful languages are ever discussed. I don't work in either language professionally and I feel I'm missing out on major career opportunities.

I understand the reasons why Java/C# don't get discussed too much, I just want to know how many of us use it.

Thank you.

EDIT: Thank you for the responses so far, it seems that I am indeed throwing away a lot of career opportunities.

As an aside, for the Java stack, is learning Core Java , Servlets / JSP, Hibernate (or other ORM) enough to meet the basic skills required for most of these jobs?

[Avalaxy]

Full-time .NET developer (doing all sorts of freelance jobs; ASP.NET, Xamarin, etc.). I think you'll find that if you look outside the silicon valley bubble, C# and Java are actually dominating the market and you won't get very far trying to find a Haskell/Rust/Go job.

[iends]

This is very much true in experience as a developer in Raleigh, NC.

The bigs ones are Java, C#, JavaScript (usually Angular, and a handful of Node.js jobs) in my area. Followed by Ruby. Python is usually listed as a nice to know and there are also a handful of Python jobs around. Go is started get get listed as a "nice to know language" in a handful of jobs. It's extremely rare to see a job mentioning Haskell and I can't say I've ever seen a job looking for somebody who knows Rust.

[flurben]

I'm hunting for a python job in NC/SC right now, and yeah, it's all C#, Java, JS.

[iends]

In RTP, since that's where I am:

https://www.caktusgroup.com/

http://www.redhat.com

https://www.sciencelogic.com/

https://www.ansible.com/

I moved from Python to JavaScript a few years ago primarily because the market just isn't there locally.

[flurben]

Thanks, iends, I appreciate the info. I'm in Charleston, and have seen maybe one or two.

I will check these out.

[groundCode]

C# pays my bills at the moment. There's never been a lot of love for Microsoft on HN, but politics aside, C# is an excellent language in my opinion and where I am (UK), there are lots of C# and Java jobs. They tend to be more "corporatey" than the Ruby/Python cohort.

[Maultasche]

I use C# every day in my current job. I would say that most software development in this region is either C# or Java. I live in a city in California that is not in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley.

However, I don't read Hacker News for the Java/C# news, that's for sure. There's plenty of Javascript-related stuff here, which is also relevant to what I do, and I'm always interested in learning more about (and trying out) various other languages and frameworks.

I've been learning Node.js, and I've been contemplating learning Elixir. I may or may not need any of that in the future, but I think they are valuable to learn about anyway. Learning a different way of thinking about things improves my awareness of what is possible.

I don't think C#/Java is a waste of time, but don't stop there. Learn as much as you can about other languages and platforms. You'll find yourself in a better position than someone who is uninterested in anything that doesn't directly apply to the job they are doing right now.

[pwnedbilly]

I do both C# and Java professionally - more of the latter right now because libraries/portability.

Java: The sad fact is that there is a huge surface area here, and which bit you focus on is going to depend on what kind of work you want to be doing (and where you're doing it).

As a bare minimum I'd want to look at the following standards: JPA (JSR-338); Dependency Injection (JSR-330); JAX-RS (JSR-339).

A solid understanding of Spring Framework would help, as that's pretty common. If you're deploying onto an application server, Wildfly would be the direction I'd look at.

From there it's religion - your best bet is to look at the jobs your interested and bone up on the toolchains that keep coming up.

Hope that helps :)

[Yaziyumaru]

C# Developer here, I think C# is an incredibly good language and the Microsoft ecosystem is moving in a much better direction.

You have way more options for OSS nowadays and you don't have to be as reliant on Microsoft's black-box frameworks. I think these changes could improve the popularity of C# in the coming years.

[TylerJewell]

I am founder and CEO of Codenvy and project lead for Eclipse Che, a next-generation Eclipse IDE. Of the 850,000 lines of code that make up Eclipse Che and Codenvy, about 70% of them are authored in Java. Another 20% or so is JavaScript.

Our customers include SAP, Samsung, Intuit, TIAA, Red Hat - mostly from technology cloud providers, financial services, and insurance. Every one of our customers have Java in their environments and value that our product was built in Java.

[partisan]

I use C# every day and it pays handsomely when coupled with expert level knowledge within an industry. The language is pretty darn good and the tools are great as well. Plus, most problems are solved online so it becomes a question of conceiving the right solution at a macro level.

For C#: ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web Api, WCF or ServiceStack for services, Entity Framework for data access.

[meekins]

Enterprise Java guy here. I guess Java is not much discussed here since it's most popular in corporate scenarios - and it's not very sexy nor fun. I mean, even though it's my first language and the platform I know the best, whenever I do some coding in my spare time I'd rather hack something together in Ruby.

Java is the Cobol of the future so there should be plenty of job opportunities on that platform in the foreseeable future. Big IT service companies doing custom enterprise apps have however moved most of the development work offshore (India or Eastern Europe) at least here in Northern Europe but there's plenty of opportunities for more senior developers and architects.

Despite all that boilerplate and complex application servers Java EE is actually quite nice for distributed enterprise apps with complex integration requirements. So if corporate environment doesn't turn you off and you want to get started with Java EE, I'd suggest in addition to core Java you take a look at EJB3, JPA and CDI. JAX-RS is nice for REST. If you want to write your front-end in Java, take a look at JSF (and some "rich" component library like PrimeFaces) instead of JSP. Servlets are the technology behind there so it's "good to know".

Spring framework was very popular before EJB3 and JPA, and still remains popular in contexts where you don't have/need an EJB container. But if you know you are targeting a full Java EE app server most of the neat features offered by Spring are also available in vanilla Java EE.

[tasdev]

Yes, .NET/C#/VB on a daily basis for a long time. JEE for a good period as well. I constantly keep an eye on jobs and in my local area I would say 85% fall into .NET or Java, with the majority being .NET. Other standouts include PHP, Python, and a little of C/C++, even VB classic. I've seen maybe 3-4 Ruby jobs advertised in the past 4 years, never anything for the Silicon Valley trendy. But then again, I live in a very small town (Hobart).

[strommen]

I live in a major U.S. metro that is not in California. Around here, I'd estimate that 75% of web development work is done in C# or Java. Thousands of jobs in both frameworks.

[giaour]

Seattle?

[scalesolved]

It says Minneapolis on his profile

[cableshaft]

I've had an easier time getting C#/.net work than anything else around Chicago, although I do get pinged for my iOS experience periodically. Lots of .NET jobs around here.

[aggieben]

I'm near Dallas, and this is close to my experience.

[tjr]

I am currently developing an avionics network analysis tool in C#. A colleague built something similar (for a different avionics platform) in Java.

The job isn't all C# by any means, but language choice is flexible, and C# was a good fit here. I expect to be using it more on future projects.

[yulaow]

Here in Europe the big part of the market is in Java, then C# and then PHP. Even startups here are often using those languages (with some microframework like Spark for Java). The fact that also most universities teaches those helps

[osullivj]

C++ and Python are my primary languages, the ones I choose for my own projects, and the leads on my CV. I also do a fair bit of C# and Java, simply because they are so commonplace. For my current contract, C++ is the core lang, but extensions are in C#. On a previous project servers were in C++, and GUIs in Java. There's an awful lot of C# and Java out there, often in CRUD "enterprise" style systems.

[kidmenot]

C# has been paying my bills for quite a few years. I hail from Italy, though.

[zerozerozeroone]

Almost every major tech company in the Bay Area uses Java in some respect: Google, Amazon, Facebook, EBay, Netflix, Yahoo, LinkedIn (almost entirely Java), and Square just to name a few. It's not discussed that much because it's not "cool" or "cutting edge", which frankly is how languages should be in my opinion.

[scalesolved]

I work full time remotely using Java. There are tons of Java jobs out there doing interesting work. On the remote front Java isn't that popular but it's still possible to find remote friendly Java companies (just not as ubiquitous as Ruby/Python/JS remote jobs).

Edit: I've been working with Java professionally for just short of 8 years.

[cavydude]

The team I work with use the Spring framework for backends and REST APIs, and most of what we make are webapps. I also know a good number of companies (at least in my area) that hire java developers.

As for C# I would image there are a decent number of people who use it for .NET. The only time I ever used it was in my senior capstone, though.

[chrisbennet]

I use a mix of C# and C++. C# for a few projects, C++ for most others.

[mus1cfl0w]

No C# here but lots of Java (Backend, Android). (Cologne, Germany)

[miguelrochefort]

C# every day for 2.5 years.

I build Windows, iOS and Android (Xamarin).

[voltagex_]

C# here for about 6 years.

[AndrewDucker]

Full-time C# developer here.

(Edinburgh, Scotland)

[eecks]

I'm a java developer. We use Spring. The latest version of it is pretty nice.

[romanovcode]

No but I wish I did (C#).

[lightlyused]

Both pay the bills here.