
Ask HN: Do you use either C# or Java in your professional work? - servlate
I am curious to know how many people are using Java (and C#) as their primary bread-maker.<p>I want to get a reality check because from what I see on here, it seems like only a handful languages are ever discussed. I don&#x27;t work in either language professionally and I feel I&#x27;m missing out on major career opportunities.<p>I understand the reasons why Java&#x2F;C# don&#x27;t get discussed too much, I just want to know how many of us use it.<p>Thank you.<p>EDIT: Thank you for the responses so far, it seems that I am indeed throwing away a lot of career opportunities.<p>As an aside, for the Java stack, is learning Core Java , Servlets &#x2F; JSP, Hibernate (or other ORM) enough to meet the basic skills required for most of these jobs?
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Avalaxy
Full-time .NET developer (doing all sorts of freelance jobs; ASP.NET, Xamarin,
etc.). I think you'll find that if you look outside the silicon valley bubble,
C# and Java are actually dominating the market and you won't get very far
trying to find a Haskell/Rust/Go job.

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iends
This is very much true in experience as a developer in Raleigh, NC.

The bigs ones are Java, C#, JavaScript (usually Angular, and a handful of
Node.js jobs) in my area. Followed by Ruby. Python is usually listed as a nice
to know and there are also a handful of Python jobs around. Go is started get
get listed as a "nice to know language" in a handful of jobs. It's extremely
rare to see a job mentioning Haskell and I can't say I've ever seen a job
looking for somebody who knows Rust.

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flurben
I'm hunting for a python job in NC/SC right now, and yeah, it's all C#, Java,
JS.

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iends
In RTP, since that's where I am:

[https://www.caktusgroup.com/](https://www.caktusgroup.com/)

[http://www.redhat.com](http://www.redhat.com)

[https://www.sciencelogic.com/](https://www.sciencelogic.com/)

[https://www.ansible.com/](https://www.ansible.com/)

I moved from Python to JavaScript a few years ago primarily because the market
just isn't there locally.

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flurben
Thanks, iends, I appreciate the info. I'm in Charleston, and have seen maybe
one or two.

I will check these out.

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groundCode
C# pays my bills at the moment. There's never been a lot of love for Microsoft
on HN, but politics aside, C# is an excellent language in my opinion and where
I am (UK), there are lots of C# and Java jobs. They tend to be more
"corporatey" than the Ruby/Python cohort.

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Maultasche
I use C# every day in my current job. I would say that most software
development in this region is either C# or Java. I live in a city in
California that is not in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley.

However, I don't read Hacker News for the Java/C# news, that's for sure.
There's plenty of Javascript-related stuff here, which is also relevant to
what I do, and I'm always interested in learning more about (and trying out)
various other languages and frameworks.

I've been learning Node.js, and I've been contemplating learning Elixir. I may
or may not need any of that in the future, but I think they are valuable to
learn about anyway. Learning a different way of thinking about things improves
my awareness of what is possible.

I don't think C#/Java is a waste of time, but don't stop there. Learn as much
as you can about other languages and platforms. You'll find yourself in a
better position than someone who is uninterested in anything that doesn't
directly apply to the job they are doing right now.

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pwnedbilly
I do both C# and Java professionally - more of the latter right now because
libraries/portability.

Java: The sad fact is that there is a huge surface area here, and which bit
you focus on is going to depend on what kind of work you want to be doing (and
where you're doing it).

As a bare minimum I'd want to look at the following standards: JPA (JSR-338);
Dependency Injection (JSR-330); JAX-RS (JSR-339).

A solid understanding of Spring Framework would help, as that's pretty common.
If you're deploying onto an application server, Wildfly would be the direction
I'd look at.

From there it's religion - your best bet is to look at the jobs your
interested and bone up on the toolchains that keep coming up.

Hope that helps :)

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Yaziyumaru
C# Developer here, I think C# is an incredibly good language and the Microsoft
ecosystem is moving in a much better direction.

You have way more options for OSS nowadays and you don't have to be as reliant
on Microsoft's black-box frameworks. I think these changes could improve the
popularity of C# in the coming years.

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TylerJewell
I am founder and CEO of Codenvy and project lead for Eclipse Che, a next-
generation Eclipse IDE. Of the 850,000 lines of code that make up Eclipse Che
and Codenvy, about 70% of them are authored in Java. Another 20% or so is
JavaScript.

Our customers include SAP, Samsung, Intuit, TIAA, Red Hat - mostly from
technology cloud providers, financial services, and insurance. Every one of
our customers have Java in their environments and value that our product was
built in Java.

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partisan
I use C# every day and it pays handsomely when coupled with expert level
knowledge within an industry. The language is pretty darn good and the tools
are great as well. Plus, most problems are solved online so it becomes a
question of conceiving the right solution at a macro level.

For C#: ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web Api, WCF or ServiceStack for services, Entity
Framework for data access.

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meekins
Enterprise Java guy here. I guess Java is not much discussed here since it's
most popular in corporate scenarios - and it's not very sexy nor fun. I mean,
even though it's my first language and the platform I know the best, whenever
I do some coding in my spare time I'd rather hack something together in Ruby.

Java is the Cobol of the future so there should be plenty of job opportunities
on that platform in the foreseeable future. Big IT service companies doing
custom enterprise apps have however moved most of the development work
offshore (India or Eastern Europe) at least here in Northern Europe but
there's plenty of opportunities for more senior developers and architects.

Despite all that boilerplate and complex application servers Java EE is
actually quite nice for distributed enterprise apps with complex integration
requirements. So if corporate environment doesn't turn you off and you want to
get started with Java EE, I'd suggest in addition to core Java you take a look
at EJB3, JPA and CDI. JAX-RS is nice for REST. If you want to write your
front-end in Java, take a look at JSF (and some "rich" component library like
PrimeFaces) instead of JSP. Servlets are the technology behind there so it's
"good to know".

Spring framework was very popular before EJB3 and JPA, and still remains
popular in contexts where you don't have/need an EJB container. But if you
know you are targeting a full Java EE app server most of the neat features
offered by Spring are also available in vanilla Java EE.

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tasdev
Yes, .NET/C#/VB on a daily basis for a long time. JEE for a good period as
well. I constantly keep an eye on jobs and in my local area I would say 85%
fall into .NET or Java, with the majority being .NET. Other standouts include
PHP, Python, and a little of C/C++, even VB classic. I've seen maybe 3-4 Ruby
jobs advertised in the past 4 years, never anything for the Silicon Valley
trendy. But then again, I live in a very small town (Hobart).

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strommen
I live in a major U.S. metro that is not in California. Around here, I'd
estimate that 75% of web development work is done in C# or Java. Thousands of
jobs in both frameworks.

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giaour
Seattle?

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scalesolved
It says Minneapolis on his profile

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cableshaft
I've had an easier time getting C#/.net work than anything else around
Chicago, although I do get pinged for my iOS experience periodically. Lots of
.NET jobs around here.

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aggieben
I'm near Dallas, and this is close to my experience.

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tjr
I am currently developing an avionics network analysis tool in C#. A colleague
built something similar (for a different avionics platform) in Java.

The job isn't all C# by any means, but language choice is flexible, and C# was
a good fit here. I expect to be using it more on future projects.

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yulaow
Here in Europe the big part of the market is in Java, then C# and then PHP.
Even startups here are often using those languages (with some microframework
like Spark for Java). The fact that also most universities teaches those helps

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osullivj
C++ and Python are my primary languages, the ones I choose for my own
projects, and the leads on my CV. I also do a fair bit of C# and Java, simply
because they are so commonplace. For my current contract, C++ is the core
lang, but extensions are in C#. On a previous project servers were in C++, and
GUIs in Java. There's an awful lot of C# and Java out there, often in CRUD
"enterprise" style systems.

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kidmenot
C# has been paying my bills for quite a few years. I hail from Italy, though.

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zerozerozeroone
Almost every major tech company in the Bay Area uses Java in some respect:
Google, Amazon, Facebook, EBay, Netflix, Yahoo, LinkedIn (almost entirely
Java), and Square just to name a few. It's not discussed that much because
it's not "cool" or "cutting edge", which frankly is how languages should be in
my opinion.

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scalesolved
I work full time remotely using Java. There are tons of Java jobs out there
doing interesting work. On the remote front Java isn't that popular but it's
still possible to find remote friendly Java companies (just not as ubiquitous
as Ruby/Python/JS remote jobs).

Edit: I've been working with Java professionally for just short of 8 years.

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cavydude
The team I work with use the Spring framework for backends and REST APIs, and
most of what we make are webapps. I also know a good number of companies (at
least in my area) that hire java developers.

As for C# I would image there are a decent number of people who use it for
.NET. The only time I ever used it was in my senior capstone, though.

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chrisbennet
I use a mix of C# and C++. C# for a few projects, C++ for most others.

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mus1cfl0w
No C# here but lots of Java (Backend, Android). (Cologne, Germany)

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miguelrochefort
C# every day for 2.5 years.

I build Windows, iOS and Android (Xamarin).

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voltagex_
C# here for about 6 years.

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AndrewDucker
Full-time C# developer here.

(Edinburgh, Scotland)

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eecks
I'm a java developer. We use Spring. The latest version of it is pretty nice.

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romanovcode
No but I wish I did (C#).

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lightlyused
Both pay the bills here.

