What features should C# 4.0 onwards have to encourage switching from Java? [closed]

Question

Java is a popular language & platform, having a huge ecosystem. Are there any features that C# 4.0 onwards and its platforms should have, to make you completely switch to C# programming?

Answer 1

Make it run on as many platforms as Java?

Otherwise it is completely irrelevant to us.

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Edit: For a discussion about Mono making .NET "cross platform", see https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/20275/mono-is-frequently-used-to-say-yes-net-is-cross-platform-how-valid-is-that

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Edit 2015: Microsoft has decided to open source the backend part of .NET, which will enable community to port this to even more platforms than Java runs on. I consider this the ultimate move against the oracle approach to Java evolution.

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Edit 2019: .NET Core is now available for Linux, and therefore as Docker images. Our experiences so far has been very nice. We have a mission critical application which runs nicely in Kubernetes, and we have no particular preference for writing microservices in either .NET or Java.

Answer 2

The general uptake of C# in the marketplace has nothing really to do with language features, which I understand are now superior to Java. Adopting C# requires a complete organizational strategic shift in the main:

• You already have a gazillion Java applications and a host of Java developers. Why switch C#? You'll need new staff and suddenly all of your applications are legacy by definition. This is a huge deal! Undergoing this change puts a huge risk on your company for what may be only slight benefit: why bother?

• You are used to at least the option of many large providers of operating system and middleware which support your Java ecosystem. This disappears overnight and you expose yourself to a monopoly pricing model (i.e. you are pretty much tied in to Microsoft, to all intents and purposes). Being subject to monopoly pricing is bad! Most organizations would rather have a slight technological disadvantage to avoid monopoly pricing because the pricing will almost certainly take away any extra revenues anyway.