> Couple that with the fact that he saw C# and .NET for what it was, Java done right
C# has been a step up over Java, while .NET went in the other direction, getting all the things that Java got right backwards. In spite of .NET being heralded as the second coming of Java back in 2003, Java is stronger than ever and the ecosystem is probably much bigger than .NET will ever be.
The problem that Microsoft always had, and I don't fully understand the dynamics at play here, is with the ecosystem they've grown. Whether this was on purpose, or due to platform limitations, or it just happened because they attracted the wrong kind of expectations, or maybe because of cultural issues, is up for debate. But the fact is the ecosystem is extremely weak and filled with snake oil offerings, with .NET developers waiting for Microsoft to throw solutions over the wall for everything, while complaining about Java's fragmentation, when in fact Java's fragmentation is its bigger strength, as it's based on open-source that survives and competes and evolves and is a much healthier situation than the clusterfuck that happens when a paternalistic company is in charge, like with Windows Forms/XAML/Silverlight/HTML5.
Yes, Java as a language sucks, but focusing on that while ignoring the JVM and the whole ecosystem around it is a pretty shallow comparisson. Hats off to Miguel, he saw something that he liked and built his own version. But for devs looking to make choices, without imposed constraints, picking .NET over Java makes no sense whatsoever.
Even the original motto, with .NET being a runtime for multiple languages whereas Java was a language for multiple platforms proved in the end to be false. The JVM is not only multi-platform, but technically speaking it is much better at hosting other languages, with proof being the alternative languages implementations such as Clojure, Scala, JRuby, Jython, Groovy and Rhino, all of them popular and with healthy communities.
C# has been a step up over Java, while .NET went in the other direction, getting all the things that Java got right backwards. In spite of .NET being heralded as the second coming of Java back in 2003, Java is stronger than ever and the ecosystem is probably much bigger than .NET will ever be.
The problem that Microsoft always had, and I don't fully understand the dynamics at play here, is with the ecosystem they've grown. Whether this was on purpose, or due to platform limitations, or it just happened because they attracted the wrong kind of expectations, or maybe because of cultural issues, is up for debate. But the fact is the ecosystem is extremely weak and filled with snake oil offerings, with .NET developers waiting for Microsoft to throw solutions over the wall for everything, while complaining about Java's fragmentation, when in fact Java's fragmentation is its bigger strength, as it's based on open-source that survives and competes and evolves and is a much healthier situation than the clusterfuck that happens when a paternalistic company is in charge, like with Windows Forms/XAML/Silverlight/HTML5.
Yes, Java as a language sucks, but focusing on that while ignoring the JVM and the whole ecosystem around it is a pretty shallow comparisson. Hats off to Miguel, he saw something that he liked and built his own version. But for devs looking to make choices, without imposed constraints, picking .NET over Java makes no sense whatsoever.
Even the original motto, with .NET being a runtime for multiple languages whereas Java was a language for multiple platforms proved in the end to be false. The JVM is not only multi-platform, but technically speaking it is much better at hosting other languages, with proof being the alternative languages implementations such as Clojure, Scala, JRuby, Jython, Groovy and Rhino, all of them popular and with healthy communities.
Here's what Erik Meijer has to say about Scala, btw: https://twitter.com/headinthebox/status/438355100310831104
Here's what the Java ecosystem routinely does, as open-source: http://www.robovm.com/ ; http://oss.readytalk.com/avian/ ; https://github.com/google/j2objc
And here's the best IDE ever, coming from the same people that are making Visual Studio usable: http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/