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What are the main differences between C# and Java? [duplicate]

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What are major differences between C# and Java?
I believe it was Eric Sink that said "C# is Java done right". I am pretty familiar with Java, and thought I could try to learn some C#.
As I understand it, these two OO-languages are very similar, so what are the actual differences (if any)?

Having used both extensively for various projects both commercial and hobby, I prefer the expansive open source community around Java, but the tools and (these days) quicker language advancement around C#.
Pro C#
Java got a 5 year head start on C#, during which it tried a bunch of groundbreaking stuff and gave C# some mistakes to learn from and some best practices to adopt. You can viscerally feel the difference that this makes in the class library design, in the way generics are implemented, and just in general polish.
When you add to this the fact that C# introduces a new crop of powerful, carefully chosen, and well-integrated language features every couple of years (LINQ, closures, type inference, the dynamic variable type, generic support for co- and contra-variance, etc.), it really tends to be a joy to use.
I'm actually surprised to find myself saying this, but you can count on Microsoft to bring in some of the best features from languages as diverse as Haskell, JavaScript, and Python directly into C#. All signs point to this trend continuing.
Pro Java
Java, on the other hand, had a 5 year head start (plus even more if you consider how long it has taken Microsoft to begin to come around to doing things more openly) on building a community around it. This gives rise to the fact that NUnit is a port of JUnit, NHibernate is a port of Hibernate, and in general N* is a port of J*.
You usually end up getting very similar sets of incredible tools from each language's respective community, but a lot of stuff existed (and thus matured) in Java before it existed for .Net.
Summary
Both are worth knowing, and there are tons of things to learn from both. They both have solid communities with slightly different takes on the world. I recommend knowing both and watching them closely going in to the future.

Have a look at
Comparison of Java and C Sharp
Java vs C#/.NET

I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet...
Java runs on many different devices (Win, *nix, Mac, cellphones, pas, etc. including x86, arm, and some embedded devices whose opcode is bytecode)
C# runs on 1 (well 4 if you count 2k,xp,win7 beta and win7 as 'different') os on 1 architecture.
Someone will mention mono at this point. Mono is a mistake; a lagging-far-behind implementation of .net that MS hasn't sued anyone over, but claims they can. It is not complete, (will never be) and generally lags real .net by at least a major version.

Java runs on relatively more platforms than C# (or .NET)

Differences between Java and C# and .NET [closed]

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Apologies in advance for the possible flame thread, but that's not what I'm going for.
I've only ever done serious development in Linux using C and C++, and I'm looking to take the plunge into Windows. I've been doing some reading and asking around, and it seems to me that .NET with C# is the way to go for developing commercial user-oriented business applications for Windows.
A big consideration for me is the integration of the user interface into the desktop, since this is what the user ultimately interacts with. Is it possible to recreate the look of the Office 2007 GUI in Java, for example, or is this only possible with .NET?
I'm also concerned about portability. In the future, I may want to port the application to Linux. I know about the mono project, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to go with Java.
In short, what are the trade offs between Java and C# when developing commercial, user-oriented business applications primarily intended for Windows?

The most important bit is in "primarily intended for Windows".
If you only need to work on Windows, C# is likely to be a much better bet than Java. There's a better variety of visual styles which blend in well with Windows. It also makes interoperating with native code (e.g. bits of the Win32 API or COM libraries) easier than Java. Personally I prefer it as a language, but that's a different matter.
If you need to run on other platforms, I'd seriously consider Java. While Mono has quite a lot of momentum, it doesn't have the same degree of compatibility with .NET as Java does on the various platforms it supports.
So basically, weigh up the "may want to port" aspect very carefully - it's the driving factor in the decision, from my point of view. Once you've decided to do a port, it doesn't matter much if 90% of your customers are on Windows - it'll still need to work, and work well, for the remaining 10%.

First off, whether or not your GUI will look good on windows will depend more on your skill with GUI design than it will on your choice of language or toolkit.
Windows Forms doesn't really give you full access to the Windows GUI functionality using the documented API. You'll have to make calls to native API functions or at least use windows-specific messages to achieve some effects. Also, I don't think there is a built-in way to access the Office 2007-style ribbon control. You'll need a 3rd party component for that.
A lot of .Net apps rely on 3rd party widget sets to achieve nice looking GUIs. Be warned that these frequently rely on P/Invoke or other windows-specific functionaly and thus don't work on mono. So if you really want a cross platform GUI, .Net is not the best choice.
You can also do .Net GUIs in Windows Presentation Foundation, but again this is not supported in mono.
GTK# works well on Unix and windows, though it looks slightly less native on Windows.
Java Swing is very cross platform and is looks pretty good with a platform native look and feel. You could download Netbeans to see it in action.
SWT is an alternate toolkit for Java that has slightly less cross-platform compatibility than Swing, but is still popular nonetheless. Eclipse uses this toolkit, so download that to see it in use.

Since you have an expirence with C++, you can go with C++ plus Qt for GUI. It's a good cross platform GUI library, and you can recompile the code to work in Windows, Mac, and Linux with consistent look.
Sure you can make nice interfaces with it, but maybe not as cool as MS Office interface (Microsoft blend).
You may consider it as an option.
http://www.qtsoftware.com/products/
Examples
http://www.qtsoftware.com/qt-in-use

If application is primarily for Windows - use .NET.
If you're serious about porting later - avoid use of P/Invoke, .NET above 2.0 features and 3rd party toolkits with rich GUI (which aren't running on Mono)
There are present nice and commercial .NET cross-platform apps including nice http://www.codicesoftware.com/xpfront.aspx
plastic scm UI http://www.plasticscm.com/screenshots/gui27/visual/brexplorer04.png
and many others - http://www.mono-project.com/Companies_Using_Mono
Also many developers prefer VS IDE over Eclipse and C# over Java. But if your application primarily Windows - I bet it's better to use .NET. ESPECIALLY if GUI integration is main concern, because making Java applications look like native Windows still painful. Under .NET there are LOTS of controls for Ribbon interface (inluding native one). Try to find same for Java with proper look and you'll understand what I mean
With Mono (if you will keep the main rules) most of the time you won't have a problem of porting and embedding Mono itself inside your application.

CAD/CAM without C++ [closed]

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Is it possible to do CAD/CAM software without having to use C++? My company developed their software with c/C++ but that was more than 10 years ago. Today,there is a lot of legacy code that switching would force us to get rid of but i was wondering what the actual risks are. We have a lot of mathematical algorithms for toolpath calculations, feature recognition and simulation and 3D Rendering and i was wondering if C# can handles all of that without great performance loss.
Is it a utopia to rewrite such algorithms in c# or should that language only deal with UI.
We are not talking about game development here (Halo 3 or Call Of Duty) so how much processing does CAD/CAM really need?
Can anybody enlighten me on this matter? Most of my colleagues are hardcore C++ programmers and although i program in c++ i love .NET but i am having a hard time selling .NET to them other than basic UI. Does it make sense to consider switching to .NET in such a field, or is it just not a wise idea?
Thank you

If you have a lot of legacy code that would need to be rewritten, I don't see it making business sense to switch to a different language. Even if there were gains to be had from using a different language (which is questionable), the cost of testing and debugging the new code would more than overcome them. You also have a development team that are experts in C++. There would be a big productivity drop while they came up to speed on the new language.

C# Can interop with C++ code. You can start writing new code in C# and have it call existing c++ code when needed. It wouldn't have to be just for UI. Look into C++/CLI and the C# Interop methods for information on how to use existing c++ code with new C# code.
Also, I asked a similar question here:
C# Performance For Proxy Server (vs C++)

CAD/CAM applications are fairly calculation intensive, and speed will definitely be one of the criteria for selecting a package, so I would be wary of moving to a slower language.
You need to think very carefully about the reasons for switching language. Is it because you don't like C++, or because C# will bring real benefits. It is quite likely to slow your application down. Check out the C++ C# speed comparisons.
Computer Language Benchmarks Game C++ vs C#
In my humble opinion, you'd be better off keeping all of the toolpath calculations in C++, and if you really must move any code over to another language, move it over to a scripting language which the user can easily edit, without re-compiling.
I use CAD/CAM applications every day at work, and there are a number of things in the UI which get on my nerves. They would be simple fixes if only I could get at the source.
If your company makes a CAD/CAM application which has a UI written in a scripting language which I can tweak (Lua, Python etc), I'll buy a copy.
Hugo

Have a look at pythonocc. Its provides you with a python module that wraps the OpenCASCADE CAD kernel. OpenCASCADE is the sole industry strength open source kernel I'm aware of. Nice features are STEP and IGES support and the ability to generate FEM meshes from BRep data.

Another thing you need to consider is platform independence - if there is a possibility that you/you company need to migrate your CAD software to Linux/Unix (Of course, for bussiness decision), it will be quite painful. Currently, even C++ with MFC/Win32 calls gave us many headache...

The Open Design Alliance library is cross-platform. They have recently introduced a beta of the .NET version of their library. See my answer to Open source cad drawing (dwg) library in C# for more details.
Having said that I concur with the other answers here - if it ain't broken, don't fix it, both the code and the coders. MSFT still use C++, as does the ODA - their codebase originates in C++ & is wrapped for .NET.

Utilizing the GPU with c# [closed]

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I am trying to get more processing power out of my grid.
I am using all cpus/cores, is it possible to utilize the GPU with C#.
Anyone know any libraries or got any sample code?

[Edit OCT 2017 as even this answer gets quite old]
Most of these answers are quite old, so I thought I'd give an updated summary of where I think each project is:
GPU.Net (TidePowerd) - I tried this 6 months ago or so, and did get it working though it took a little bit of work. Converts C# kernel code to cuda at compile time. Unfortunately their website has been down and their github hasn't been updated for a couple of years, which might indicate the project is dead....
Cudafy - Open source and very easy to use. Converts C# kernel code to cuda at runtime (with ability to serialize and cache). Can easily run the same kernel code on the CPU (mostly for debugging). Supports multiple GPUs. More examples available than others here. The boilerplate code referred to by other answers is minimal, and in my case at least helped with my understanding of how the code works. Cuda/Nvidia only though. Unfortunately, it seems that they didn't update their solutions for a couple of years too (latest commit in 2015 -- support of cuda 7.0).
Hybridizer. Commercial solution compiling C# to CUDA. Provides a free community edition on visual studio marketplace and samples on github.
AleaGPU Commercial solution with a free community edition for consumer GPUS. See Daniel's comments for details.
Brahma - runs LINQ expressions via OpenCL (so supports AMD too). Not much documentation / examples. Last update in 2011.
C$ - last development was over 10 years ago...
Microsoft Accelerator - similarly doesn't look like it is being actively developed any longer.
some others (C++ AMP, OpenTK -- dead/Cloo) - many of these are just bindings - ie enable you to call the GPU from C#, but your kernel code (code which is actually run on the GPU) needs to be written in C or OpenCL, meaning you must use (and learn) another language.
As I said, I would recommend Cudafy over all the others - if it could run on OpenCL as well as Cuda it would be perfect.
EDIT SEP 2013
Cudafy now allows you to compile for both CUDA and OpenCL, so will run the same C# code on on all GPUs. This sounds fantastic, though I haven't tested the OpenCL compiling yet.

Microsoft Research Accelerator was a .NET GP GPU library.

I found Brahma... It also has a GPGPU provider that allows methods to run on the GPU... Thanks for the question... Learnt something new today. :)

Here's another one: CUDAfy. It sounds like GPU.Net, in that something as simple as a method-attribute can cause the entire method to run on the GPU. But unlike GPU.Net, CUDAfy is free and open-source.
GPU.Net appears to require no boilerplate code, though (According to their docs, it's "injected automatically by the build-tool"), while CUDAfy does.
Here is an example of building an application with CUDAfy.

Could I recommend XNA Game Studio as a possible avenue for exploration? It is obviously geared up for writing games, but gives you managed access to your graphics card and much better access to capability enumeration functions and shader development than was previously available in, say, Managed DirectX. There are also ways of combining WinForms and XNA into hybrid applications:
http://www.ziggyware.com/news.php?readmore=866
You'll have to put some effort into learning shader programming (XNA supports HLSL), but this may be a simpler approach than learning a vendor-specific solution such as nVidia's CUDA. The advantage is that you can program in a 100% managed environment. Here are some HLSL links:
http://www.ziggyware.com/weblinks.php?cat_id=9
The GPGPU site is also a recommended destination for general purpose GPU programming:
http://gpgpu.org/
Best of luck!

How about http://www.tidepowerd.com/ GPU.NET ?

Well this is a pretty old question, and since it's been asked things have changed a lot.
Another option for using .Net to write GPU code, which no one has mentioned in answers in Alea GPU. It covers C#, F# and VB.
Professional GPU software development environment for .NET and Mono.
Truly cross-platform
In F# official site, Alea is the first option for using F# in GPGPU programming.
To get to know this framework I suggest take a look at its comprehensive list of examples.

In addition to Brahma, take a look at C$ (pronounced "C Bucks"). From their CodePlex site:
The aim of [C$] is creating a unified language and system for seamless parallel programming on modern GPU's and CPU's.
It's based on C#, evaluated lazily, and targets multiple accelerator models:
Currently the list of
intended architectures includes GPU,
Multi-core CPU, Multi-GPU (SLI,
CrossFire), and Multi-GPU + Multi-CPU
Hybrid Architecture.

There's a new Microsoft solution in town - C++ AMP (intro here).
Use from C# would be via P/Invoke, as demoed here for desktop apps, and here for (don't-call-it) Metro apps.
Edit: I should note that C++ AMP has an open specification, which means it's not necessarily just for the MS compiler, or just for Windows.
Edit: Apparently, the technology is now in "maintenance mode," meaning they're fixing bugs, but not actively developing.

If your GPUs are all the same brand, you might be able to get GPGPU support from the vendor, either through Nvidia's CUDA or ATI's Stream. AFAIK, they provide DLLs, which you could use through P/Invoke.

CenterSpace Software has GPU-powered computation in their NMath libraries you can add to C# project. It's a commercial product.

Managed DirectX somehow, might work

WPF also uses the GPU and you can add custom shaders using HLSL.
A Series on GPU-based Effects for WPF (Greg Schechter's Blog)

Does anyone know of any C/C++/C# code libraries that do audio synthesizer emulation? [closed]

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I'm trying to write a software synthesizer that recreates the sounds made by classic synthesizers like the Moog and the DX7. Does anyone know of any code resources for something like this? Thanks.

There are an awful lot of C/C++ libraries out there, most no longer updated. There's not much for C#, but I have seen a couple. I haven't really used any of them in anger, so I can't give any recommendations.
I would start with Harmony Central and see if you find anything of use there.
Alternatively, a search for analog synthesis on sourceforge.net has plenty of results.

CCRMA at Stanford can be a good resource for audio software. The Synthesis ToolKit in C++ (STK) looks like it could help you out.

The Moog and the Yamaha DX7 are drastically different. The DX7 uses FM synthesis, which is severely strange. Very different from the usual VCO/VCA/VCF analogs like the Moog.
For a long time, Yamaha litigated to defend its FM patents, but they have all expired by now, I believe. Casio's phase distortion was similar to Yamaha's FM, and managed to avoid Yamaha's wrath (so far as I know).
I'd start by picking one or the other. Virtual Analog (emulating analog synths) is all the rage since the Nord Lead and the Access Virus showed up. And a lot easier to contemplate. So I'd go that way if you want to walk with the hip crowd.
Start with good band-limited oscillators, make an envelope generator, do a filter. For inspiration, check out Welsh's Synthesizer Cookbook to see how all kinds of sounds can be make with a two-oscillator synth. I'd start by implementing the minimum features needed for those patches.
FM and PD are wild. If you go that route, it's all about chaining enough FM operators together in interesting configurations to get a spectrum of interesting sounds. Warning: it's a lot of work to avoid aliasing in FM.

Synthmaker and SynthEdit will generate VST code for you. SynthEdit definitely outputs the uncompiled C++ source files, and is free.
http://www.synthedit.com/
http://synthmaker.co.uk/

your best bet is to check out the developer forums over at KvR. They will be able to point you in the direction of the best open source DSP/synthesis engines as well as some open source VSTi plugins that you can take inspiration from. It will all be in C / C++ though. There is only the most basic of audio synthesis available in managed code at the moment.

The musicdsp website also has a great synthesis library. Lots of sample code in C/C++ on how to do things.

Look at the answers to the Python Music Library question. While the question says "Python", Python is built on C. So anything usable from Python will have a C library, also.

I wrote a simple synth library as part of an iPhone app. Perhaps it would work for your synth needs as well. Perhaps not.
http://mobilesynth.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/mobilesynth/Classes/synth/

These tutorials (especially from part 8 onwards) cover programming all the parts of a classic subtractive synth in C++: Oscillators, envelopes, filter and LFO.

Chuck is the best I know of, but its C++ like, not C++.

I've had some success with the BASS library, but it's .Net support was a little crude when last I played with it. It mostly low-level stream encoding and such, but it does have support for some DX8 effects.

There are two articles on CodeProject you might want to check out. Leslie Stanford created a Synth toolkit in C# (as far as I know it's completely managed).
C# Synth Toolkit - Part I
C# Synth Toolkit - Part II
Also, I just found this StackOverflow Question which has some good links, though it's Java related