I have recently been asked to put .Net development on hold and move forward on a project that uses Java technologies. Prior to being introduced to .Net I came from a Java environment. At the time it was my first job out of college and I didn’t have any language or platform preference, so I was happy to work with it. The last three years I have had the opportunity to work with .Net and I have decided that .Net is my preference, but the question I keep asking myself is why. This purpose of this post is not to compare .Net and Java and determine which one is better, but rather to help explore why I enjoy working with .Net better.

Why is it I like .Net over using Java technologies? I think the main reason comes down to comfort. I am very comfortable using .Net. I can build a .Net web application from scratch. I know what hardware and software are required, how to configure everything, how to architect the code, how to test it, and how to deploy it to production. The only thing I really know about Java is the language. With that being said, of course anyone is going to like the technology they are most comfortable with better, so what are some of the other reasons I like .Net?

I found the learning curve for .Net was relatively easy. I worked with Java technologies for two years and I couldn’t begin to explain to someone how everything worked together. After only a year of working with .Net I had a pretty good idea of how everything worked and found it easy to communicate this knowledge.

The cool thing about .Net is that it is a platform and you have a choice of language. Once you understand how the platform works you can pretty much switch to using a different language and only have to learn the syntax. I like the ability to do this because it helps to keep me challenged without the overwhelming task of learning and understanding how to accomplish the same tasks with another set of technologies.

Java on the other hand, is simply a language, so that same flexibility is not there. In addition, there are a number of choices for Java platforms each with its own challenges and benefits. What platform you use is generally up to the company that employs you. There isn’t one definitive platform on which you develop in Java, so that can add to the learning curve.

I love Visual Studio. It is hands down the best development environment I have ever worked with. It’s has so many features that make development faster and easier. I can’t really say anything bad about it. I am using MyEclipse right now and I keep looking for some of the same features I used on a daily basis in Visual Studio that sadly don’t exist in it.

After thinking about this post and trying to answer the question for myself, I am still unsure if these are good enough reasons to like .Net better than using Java technologies. I suppose the answer will always be subjective; there is no right or wrong answer, it is a matter of preference. Perhaps right now, I am jaded slightly because it is more a forced transition than a choice to pick Java development back up. However, regardless of the circumstances, I think the reasons behind my preference are sound. And while I will develop in Java as needed, my first choice will always be .Net.