Originally posted here by Soda_Popinsky
IMO C# is extremely similar to java in code...

Java is platform independent... If you can get the JRE, you can run java. C# requires the .NET framework. You won't be running your C# executables on nix anytime soon.
Sorry to be contrary, Soda_Popinsky. (Though let me begin by saying that C# and Java are incredibly similar syntactically and in OOP style...)

C# executables can be run right now on *nix, through 2 different ways.

First, the Microsoft Solution:
Microsoft Rotor
This is Version 1.0 of the Shared Source CLI. For more infor on it, here's an interesting article:
http://www.codeguru.com/Csharp/.NET/...icle.php/c4659

The other implementation is an Open Source project called Mono. Check out http://www.mono-project.com/ for more information. The thing that makes Mono better than the M$ version is the GTK# bindings, allowing you to write GUI things in C# for Unix, I'm pretty sure that Rotor will only allow command line things to be done on non-windows platforms (as it is more for the showing off of the internal workins of the .NET JIT compiler...)

One major caveate that supports Soda_Popinsky's claim is that Mono is lacks quite a few things and can only ever play catch-up to Microsoft (since it is a little hard to incorporate features that only Microsoft knows about). And Rotor really isn't for production, just demonstration.

Mono is the reason why I've decided to try out C# (mostly because ASP.NET shows up more in job descriptions than PHP, of course I want to learn Java for that reason as well)

So, it boils down to, do you want to write code for primarily Windows machines, or do you want to write code for practically every computer under the sun? If Windows go for C#, if everything the go for Java.

Really most technologies are better at something then its counterpart, so deciding on what to use is a teliological process (look to the end to see what you need to reach that goal).

I'm done babbling.
Ciao,
Dhej