On the other hand, .NET developers are more aware of speed, memory, threading, synchronization, networking etc. as they write more desktop applications. If you ask a Java developer about Threading or Networking, they’d probably know very little as they don’t deal with it often.

So in the end, your knowledge is oriented towards your needs and experiences you go through.

I have programmed in both Java and .NET and the main difference I see is in .NET you can program at all levels from pointers to IOC, DI or any acronym you throw, but can’t with Java. And there is a misconception that coupling is outright bad. Sometimes coupling/tight integration is good if the involved systems are all of the same platform.

Over my career, I’ve been everything from help desk to network admin to developer to CIO. I have done contract work in both Java and .Net. I have seen outstanding and horrific development in both.

I find .Net developers are (in general) more interested in solving business problems (and making money) than building technical towers.

In times of recession, this matters more than knowing 1001 design patterns.

You’re 100% right.

Any “interviewer” who asked me about AoP would get my reply “AoP is almost always a bad idea”.

If he’s running things at the company, you can be sure they’re spending gobs of ca$h getting nowhere fast.

I personally do not care for DI because I have a fundamentally different approach to design. When I’m working on a class or function, I prefer to see everything related to the task at hand….. well… at hand.

I hate having to run off over here to see what that does, then run off over there to see what that’s gonna do, then attend a meeting with these guys to see what’s gonna happen if I mash the blue button, then come back over here; dodge right, spin left… look over my left shoulder while holding amirror just so….

All that is the reason why so much softwre is CRAP, never gets implemented, or if it does, never gets used.

I write code that reads, in as much as possible, straight from top to bottom with minimal detours. Everything it does is here. It reads almost like English. IoC and DI and such coding methodologies are practices that encourage all kinds of unnecessary stuff. When I write code, it’s more like I’m narrating the code than “coding” it. And I narrate it in pretty much the order that I see it flowing.

That’s just my opinion, though.

And then bragging about it as some type of ‘higher knowledge’ that makes you into a ’special priesthood’ of the “enterprise Java developer” — is indicative of an insecure, mediocre person trying to build a ‘cocoon’ of hyper inflated ‘value’ that he some how possesses compared to mere mortals.

Techniques like AoP, IOC, and DI get this free pass because they tend to decouple the code more. Nobody seems to care as much that now they need to dig through the code to find out what type of object is being made. They’re great ideas. But they’re not gospel, and they’re not suitable for use everywhere. However, because they attain buzzword status, they become important, and people think they’re more important than they actually are. Some people know these techniques but under different names.

Another observation: the Java world (and .NET) seem perpetually caught up in this endless race to move more and more code away from where it is actually used *just in case* it has to be changed later. Rampant, speculative generality is as much a design sin as overlooking obvious generality in my book. I don’t want to have to put magic XML files in certain places to make an application work. I don’t want to specify subclasses to inject in.

All your elegance dies if it impacts the user of the library, or (worse), the end user. Rails did an excellent job of showing up many systems that were mired in their own engineering ‘goodness.’

you may have noticed that a lot of commenters also mention similar experiences

And then a lot of commenters seriously start debating about why this is so?

Ridiculous.

(I’m a Java developer myself).

The real deal is Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are the ones making money not you and me. I still live in a rental apt after 18 yrs after graduating. You may think I am an old dog with no new tricks. But I see the same with young developers too, nothing promising in their life, they would probably end up in rental places after 15 to 20 yrs. We really need to think outside the bun in real life not just the work we do or the games we play. I have nothing against Bill Gates, he thought outside the bun.

So stop whining and think where your life is leading.

By the way I am not stuck at C, am working on asp.net 3.5 and Sharepoint.

There’s a lot of interesting linguistic research saying that your native natural language actually shapes and in some ways restricts the type of thought you are capable of. So I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the formal language you use to program shapes the way you think about programming. If your language encourages or requires good practices, a good developer will be better and an bad developer might approach average.

But every language has its restrictions, and what makes a great developer (IMO, and among other things) is the ability to be aware of those restrictions. Since Java encourages IoC, DI, AoP, ORM, etc., and has for years in some cases, I’d be more impressed by a Java dev who could talk about functional programming. And I’d be equally impressed by a .NET dev who could discuss AoP. Both are signs of someone interested in programming outside of their tech bubble.

I’d still give them all the FizzBuzz test to make sure they could code.

When I was doing interviews a few years back, I used to ask interviewees to describe in broad strokes how a hashtable works. I only ever found one who could give a halfway decent answer, and it began with “hashtables are a magical thing”. The fact of the matter was that when I learned programming, you had to roll your own hashtables and has functions, whereas now, every programming language comes with hashtables built in. I still think programmers should know how they work, because if you dont, its real easy to make mistakes when rolling your own Equals/GetHashCode pairs. Ive even seen ‘experienced’ programmers doing such things as hashtable[a.GetHashCode()^b.GetHashCode()] = x for implementing a composite key on a and b.

When I first started reading the GoF patterns book, I found myself pleasantly surprised that I had been using patterns much like the ones described by the GoF, but I just hadnt abstracted and named them.

I think you will find the difference between .NET developers and Java developers is that Java developers spend a great deal of time picking and choosing between different implementations of GoF patterns, whereas .NET developers simply use the implementations given to them by the .NET framework, and it is the .NET framework developers who debate including different patterns in the framework.

The upshot is that a knowledgeable Java developer will be able to argue the benefits of this or that IoC container, a .NET developer will use the IoC container provided by .NET without even being able to identify it.

Another contrast is that while a Java developer is debating this or that implementation of IoC, a .NET developer is learning functional programming and LINQ, which has no real equivalent in the .NET world.

I’d wager more than half the ones you interview wouldn’t be able to write hello world without an IDE if their life depended on it.

Well I can’t answer that question, I know some differences between the two but not sure about the intention. Could speculate about it though…

I am however a big fan of using IoC, ORM and MVC, and know fairly well how to use them. I’m not an expert, but they give me big advantages.

I’m a self-taught programmer.
The reason I started using Monorail was that I couldn’t understand webforms.
The reason I started using NHibernate was that I didn’t understand datasets or sql commands.
(this was some years ago)

I don’t use “cool” principles/tools because they’re cool, I use them because they help me solve my problems with software design.

However, Java community is usually more open to ideas and are much more matured. I have found Sun blue print guidance to be far superior to what MS offers.

There are issues in Java side too. Many in Java community think that the language is falling rapidly behind C# in terms of feature addition. I’m not sure if the fear is entirely relevant as the number of solutions in terms of frameworks make up for that loss.

I think the biggest strength of Java is they think in terms of solutions, but in .NET I have often seen great amount of importance attached to going by MS.

Once that anomaly is controlled for, I don’t think that there is anything inherent in .NET or Java that makes you a better or worse programmer

However, what is different is the way the community is led, as other comments have pointed out. The leaders of the Java community are quick to adopt and promote new development ideas, and quick to take direction from members of the community. Microsoft has demonstrably not been, preferring to push its own ideas, no matter how demented (Software Factories, I’m looking at you). This is changing. Some very very smart people are working there on languages and frameworks, and the intelligence is bubbling to the top.

Java’s readiness to adopt new ideas is a mixed blessing. IOC and AOP are wonderful new guns to shoot yourself in the foot with. They are the antithesis of KISS, and introduce new and exciting ways to make your program incomprehensible and buggy. Like all powerful tools, they must be used with forethought and moderation. Unfortunately, I have become convinced that there are a lot of developers (possibly even the majority) who are currently incapable of that.

Yes, I currently primarily program for .NET. I would define myself as a software developer. I don’t let my tools dictate who I am