[stoperaticless]

Not the op, but at some point I did choose between the two paths/jobs assuming I will get more proficient in only one of them each year (which is true, I stayed junior in C#).

Why I chose Java boils down to two reasons:

- runs on linux (I know there is some version of c# that eventually opened up, but I kind of expect it to have lot of conditions for being cross platform, I assume that standard c# code is not crossplatform due to some reason (e.g. Com usage might be standard way of doing stuff), which would make finding crossplatform answers tedious)

- whole ecosystem is more open source and more involved parties (which I interpreted as abit less controlled by the corporate overlord, so if corporate overlord went rogue, greater chance that language would survive somehow)

Never needed to call into C though..

[5e92cb50239222b]

Despite what some fanatics may claim, operating systems other than Windows are still second class citizens (saying this after five years of doing .NET development almost exclusively on Linux), especially for dev, and operating systems other than the big three are not supported at all. So no BSDs (even FreeBSD) or Solaris if you ever need it.

Since the open .NET is pretty young, and they still have trouble with community perception due to their past actions, finding high quality FOSS libraries may pose a problem depending on what you're doing. Pretty much everything from MS is open and high quality, but they don't provide everything under the sun.

And with Java you always have alternative runtimes in case this Oracle deal goes sideways for any reason.

So you're all good, don't worry about it.

[neonsunset]

FreeBSD: `pkg install lang/dotnet` (from https://www.freshports.org/lang/dotnet)

GObject (GTK4 and similar): https://github.com/gircore/gir.core (significantly better and faster than Java alternatives, this is just one example among many)

Young: first OSS version was released 8 years ago

Solaris: might as well say "it runs COBOL but not .NET"

It's funny that everyone missed the initial context of the question and jumped onto parroting the same arguments as years ago, without actually addressing the matter at hand or saying anything of substance. Unsurprising show of ignorance by Java community. Please stay this way - will help the industry move on faster.

The premise is always the same - if something is missing in {technology I don't like}, it's a deal-breaker, and when it's not or was always there - it never mattered, or is harmful actually, that is, until {technology I like} gets it as well.

[pooya72]

Interesting, in what ways is it a second class citizen? I tried googling it, but didn't find much.

[neonsunset]

Neither point is true today FWIW.

Neither point was ever true in the last ~10 years when it comes to gamedev (or where you want to use SDL) where Java was and continues to be a much weaker choice.

[kaba0]

Java’s ecosystem is just vastly bigger. In many categories, Java has multiple open-source offerings vs .NET’s single, proprietary one that is often just a bad copy of one of the former libraries.