I think I'm leaning toward C# and .net as a concentration language for learning web development. I would like to learn good programming fundamentals and I've looked at pretty much everything else. The four I've narrowed it down to have been C#, Python, Ruby and PHP. Is there a reason to stay away from C# (and I don't think the cost issue would really apply to my solo-developer situation but I could be totally wrong). Any thoughts?
I realize that these are all great languages so I'm not trying to ask which is the best overall. However, would Ruby be a viable alternative for a first language or does it have too much "magic under the hood" coupled with Rails, and unorthodox methodologies? I do like what I've seen with the language.
This is likely to result in a flamewar but I think C# is a pretty good language to start with for Web Development.
It is a full featured object oriented language and is statically typed and compiled. It's very well documented and has a huge developer community.
If you absolutely have to run on Linux/Apache and do not want to use Mono, that would be a reason not to use C#. Other than that, I don't think there is a compelling reason not to, particularly with ASP.NET MVC, which lets you move away from the WebForms model.
This is not to say that WebForms is necessarily bad but some might object to WebForms as it introduces abstractions that are not inherent in other web development platforms.
If you go with C# for web development, depending on your experience with web technology, I'd heartily recommend starting with ASP.NET MVC before ASP.NET Web Forms.
ASP.NET Web Forms is the original style of building ASP.NET applications, and tries to abstract a lot of the details. It allows you to build applications without realising what's happening under the hood (post data, state management). In my opinion, these abstractions although making things easy at first begin to "leak" when you get into more complicated scenarios (as this tutorial proves).
ASP.NET MVC on the other hand makes it easier to build web sites that are a lot "closer to the metal" while still keeping you productive. If you want absolute control over the resulting HTML and aren't afraid of things like cookies, form tags, post and query string data, then you might enjoy ASP.NET MVC a lot more.
Of course it would be beneficial to know both. But if I was starting now, I'd probably start with MVC and move to Forms (then realise how bad it is and move back :)).
There are no "best language over all". You use one tool for the purpose it has been made, that's why there are several tools.
Since your question is "why not learn C#", I'd say :
If you plan to work with other OS then Windows (Mono cannot compare).
If work in an env or with people not .net friendly (e.g : bank, scientists)
If you work in an env or with people that are expert in another good tech (never underestimate the use of a good master).
If you think Free Software matters so much that using a MS product is not worth it.
If you don't like MS Visual Studio (working in c# without a good IDE is a pain).
If You plan to program something that .net is not suited for (e.g embedded devices, scripting, real-time, fault tolerant system, AI, etc).
If you are a web dev and can't afford a Windows Server Licence.
If you want to learn programming with the very basics, including simple functions and quick and dirty scripts.
Now, I program in Php, Python, Java and C#. Python is my language of choice, but c# is really the first MS programming tool that seduced me : it's clean and efficient. Really, it's about what you want to do, not a question of religion.
Make YOUR choice.
That's said, C# sucks and Python rocks.
I agree C# is a pretty complete language, it's syntax is clean and extensible. There's a huge amount of web resource already available, but and it's a big but, it effectively ties you to windows as your platform. For web especially that's an important consideration. On the desktop windows is king, but for web servers the market it isn't nearly so dominant.
Another side issue, if you're looking at rich media on the web you have to consider Flash and/or Silverlight. If you go C# then you're someway to using Silverlight without learning a different language.
Don't worry about the cost. The compiler is free to use, along with the rest of the Fx SDK, and you can even download Visual Studio for free.
The disadvantage to learning C# is that it ties you to a proprietary platform and software stack. Now, there is Mono, which does a good job of implementing much of C# and .Net, but the primary and most complete implementation is Microsoft's which is non-free.
I have not used C# enough to debate it's technical merits with respect to Ruby or Python. I can say, however, that learning to use and even contribute back to free software can be quite educational, in addition to the other benefits (discussed in length elsewhere) that free software provides.
c# is a good language to start with because:
It is a very good and very clean language
It has an excellent library (.NET framework). This is one of the most important things to consider when choosing a language.
It is very popular, you'll always be able to find the answer you are looking for from the community.
If you know c#, you pretty much know VB.NET.
c# is syntactically similar to Java. Learning c# won't teach you Java's libraries, but it will significantly reduce the learning curve if you want to enter the Java camp.
c# is syntactically similar to c++. Again, it uses a different library and unlike c++ you get memory management; but the learning curve should be somewhat reduced if you decide to play with c++.
As for the web...
ASP.NET webforms does a lot of magic for you. ASP.NET MVC (just released) does almost no magic for you. For learning, MVC is the better choice.
C# is a great language to use. And since you are using it via the web and not desktop applications for example, you don't have to worry about being multi-platform since the code is run on your server and the output delivered to the clients. With that said, you will have to find Windows hosting (which can sometimes be a bit more expensive) or use mono (which isn't exactly the most updated software out there). The downsides are minimal though, grab a copy of the express edition and go for it!
I think the cost of deployment might be a different thing, i.e. if your project needs to scale horizontally, and add more servers to load balance or even for geographically distributed servers. Usually the windows hosting will run a bit more than linux (without even considering the flame wars reasons).
C# is fine for starting if you are doing web development. However, I recommend that you don't start programming with web development. Web development is hard to get right. Way harder than little command line things. I recommend that you get some good experience programming for the command line, and then move up to GUI, and then move on to the web. The web has a whole bunch of things you have to worry about. You have to know 3 languages (HTML, JS, C#(or insert your server side language here)). Plus you have to worry about all the browser quirks and stuff. And that's without even getting into databases. Which is usually used in most web applications, but opens up a whole other can of worms.
Considering all the answers so far, I thought I'd look at all four languages mentioned.
While I've done a lot of development in PHP, and sadly continue to do so, I think PHP was never a great language (though it had a few great elements) and these days there's not much point picking it up. It remains extremely easy to get into but I think in general, PHP is a "bad habit".
Python is a great language, but to me, Ruby is all that Python is and a bit more. Personally I would go for Ruby.
C# is also a great language, but while I haven't used C# enough to say anything with confidence, I feel that Ruby is a better choice.
No reason in particular to stay away from C#. It's as good a language as any. Stackoverflow uses it for example, so it works on a successful website, and you can get jobs programming in it.
The proprietary thing would be a consideration if you were programming as a hobby or off your own limited budget, or you wanted to contribute to the development of the compiler/language. I'm guessing neither of these are the case. (Edit: as others have pointed out, open source environments for C# exist.)
It depends on a couple of things. C# and .Net is populate and th tools are really very easy (complared to Java! Java developer talking here...) but Windows Hosting is expensive vs LAMP (which include Ruby, Python and PHP).
For me it all depends on the tool that you want to use. For web services etc I would use C# but for a simple website PHP since its easy.
It also depends on the job market of your location... here in South Africa you get alot more C# jobs and not much PHP etc. Off course if your a freelance you will struggle to find work.
For me Ruby again is good for my own person stuff but you don't get any Ruby jobs here.
My advice? Learn the differences for yourself. Play around with both of them. If you have a project in mind, write a prototype for it in them. You'll always be at the mercy of other peoples' biases otherwise.
ASP.net (C#) and Ruby on Rails are used in high-profile sites, so you can't go too wrong with either one. Might I also suggest that you try out Python programming with django? It's what I tend to prefer for web programming.
I'm a C# .Net developer and I think it's great, but I'll highlight a danger in the Asp.Net WebForms. It is unlike the majority of other web frameworks and does A LOT of magic under the covers. As others have said ASP.Net MVC is probably more inline with other web frameworks (Rails for example). Web Forms abstracts a lot of the nuts and bolts of webdev away which If you want to be web developer you'll end up needing to know. So yes C# is great but I'd start with MVC and then look at web forms possibly. Also looking at other languages and frameworks is highly encouraged there's always stuff to learn.
Commercially I am a C# developer. I love C#. C# is a great strongly typed language. With Resharper installed I can build my ideas in code rapidly and flex it to my will.
When I go home each evening I use Ruby. Even though I have no refactoring support (snif.) I find I am much more productive in Ruby than in C#.
I worked writing a large ASP.Net application for a couple of years. We implemented MVC to try to detangle the view from the model. It always felt like I was fighting the framework, not working with it. The latest .Net frameworks for doing web application are based on Rails... just a couple of years behind. I love the language. I love the CLR. I'm not too keen on .Net.
I find the ruby community to be friendly and vibrant. The rails open source community produces loads of tutorials and plugins that make getting up to speed easy and putting your application together simple.
Another thing to consider (as far as choosing a language to learn) is that ruby is an Object Oriented language. Even classes are objects. C# is a Class Oriented language, ie. it provides you one way to create objects.. define a class first. (not totally true.. you can generate assemblies in memory using codedom.. but that is by no means easy).
This may seem like a subtle point, but there is a difference.. and until you get experience with an OO language like ruby or smalltalk it's not obvious what that is. Once you have felt the freedom of building objects by mixing in functionality at runtime etc. you find that all the 'work-around's you had to do in C# disappear. Not having the safety net of interfaces does seems scary at first.
In all, I'd learn ruby..
If you are new to programming (totally) I'd start with http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/
Then I would learn BDD (RSpec) and get test infected as soon as possible.
Then I'd consume rails tutorials and screen casts until my eyes popped
The only problem is .. if you start with ruby then later go to C# you'll find yourself going "Aaaaagh! This would be so much easier to do in ruby" all the time. I know I do.
It really depends on what you are trying to achieve. I program in both and to be brutally honest, if you are trying to make a career out of programming, I get paid twice as much for .NET programming. The types of clients that I do PHP dev work for are not the types that pay a lot (PHP is often chosen based on saving some $$$). .NET seems to be much more entrenched in larger corporations.
Just my observation...
No disadvantages really except that you will be unwelcome in those social groups (and even geographical regions) that pose themselves against the "evil Microsoft".
The language (better .NET platform) is quite good. One important thing is that it is being very actively developed causing some people trouble keeping up. But I'd rather have rapid development compared to year-long stagnation.
You might consider checking what employers in your area prefer as a technology stack.
Considering licensing costs you can consider the following: If it is a small site you can use Visual Studio Express/SQL Server Express for free and it will be sufficient. If you come up with some major heavy trafficked project you will likely to find a way to make revenues and cover licensing costs.
Learning C# is great in 2009.
Way back in the day, when I entered the professional world, the language landscape was very different. I coded professionally in C and Modula 3 (Pascal replacement language).
My point is that I would plan for the technical landscape to change over time, and plan for that in your professional career development.
Learning multiple platforms is a great way to accomplish this. For example, you could have C#/.NET as your primary skill, but also work with JAVA. When a new platform emerges, you could add it as your transition or backup skillset.
Related
I have inherited a really awful webforms application that is all kinds of bad--an untestable hairy mess of datasets and Page_Load events. Object oriented? N-tier? Unit tests? source control? All academic niceties to the team that built this mess.
It started life as an asp classic app, got mostly ported to VB.NET. Management denied my request to "nuke the entire site from orbit" and start over.
[Insert discourse on how ASP.NET MVC is absolutely, positively the only sane way to to .net websites anymore]
I know we might be able to interoperate between the legacy webforms and mvc. The question is, can we leave the legacy code in VB and build the new stuff in C#? I want to force the conversion to C# so the team doesn't fall back into bad habits.
Is there an MVC 2 Areas strategy that we could use here?
I'm not surprised the idea of a total rewrite was shot down. In general that is a recipe for delay and more bugs, regardless of how buggy the current project.
As far as I know it depends on the kind of project. If the existing project is a web application then no you can not. You could reference external libraries built in C# due to the CLR, however, you will not be able to bake C# code right into the project. This is done all the time and is mostly acceptable.
If the existing project is a web site project then I would have to say yes you can. However, you should not willingly do this unless there is an absolute need to do so. This is just asking for a difficult to maintain project and essentially requires you to do a lot of management in the web.config. I would strongly advise against doing this.
site reference: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2007/02/28/14002.aspx
I think you should be able to put this method together with those from the Google search mentioned by an earlier poster. Its going to take a bit of work though.
Additionally, coding practices are pretty much entirely unrelated to the language and from my experience working with mostly web forms and a little MVC, both have their time and place. I would look at laying down a set of practices that must be followed and enforce them using code reviews. Any new code you write would be kept clean and tight while you can also update old code to use standards.
I'm intrigued by your implication that the team's bad habits are caused by use of VB. There are plenty of bad habits in any language: the trick is not to switch language, but to learn good habits.
Anyone's post about this kind of thing is going to be opinion - and in my opinion you'd be better off teaching them to program properly in VB than making them learn a new language that they may struggle with. I've seen great, stable, maintainable VB code and I've seen horrendous, messy C# code. Try not associate a programming language with the quality of output of a team that happens to be using it.
(For the record, I develop in both VB and C# and would always choose C# given the choice - but not because I think I write better code in C#.)
It is possible, essentially by making all the views, etc. in the MVC project embeddable, adding it as a reference to the VB.Net project and then registering the routes.
It's a bit more complicated that that, Matt Honeycutt has a series of posts roughly outlining how he did it here:
http://trycatchfail.com/blog/post/ASPNET-MVC-3-Razor-C-and-VBNET-WebForms-A-Tale-of-Black-Magic-Voodoo.aspx
I'm about to start working on a rich-internet-application project for a student organization at my university. I will be the only programmer, and what technologies to use is totally up to me. I've already decided on going with Silverlight, but I'm not sure whether to use C# or F#. Here are some of the things I'm keeping in mind:
C#:
I already know it and have used it extensively with Silverlight at work. I have no F# and little general FP experience.
Some say the OOP paradigm works better for complex stateful UIs.
Maintenance: I'll be in school for three more years, but after that if the app is still in use they may have a better time finding someone else to maintain it if I use a more common language.
C# experience is probably more valuable in the "real world".
F#:
The main reason is I want to learn something new. Functional programming languages seem pretty cool (I find myself using the FP features of C# very often, and think they're the biggest improvement in C# 3.0). I think I'd have a lot more fun if I used F#, but am I being unrealistic in thinking the cost in time and effort might not outweigh the benefits?
In my opinion, when you are a student, you should be trying to put your fingers in as many pots as possible.
The more languages you play with, the more understanding you will have of the "best" ways of doing things in a specific language.
As for "experience" being more valuable in the "real world". Personally I only ever consider true commercial experience when looking at potential candidates. Experience in a language when you're in a job and being paid is extremely different to experience in using a language when learning / studying it. Things you do whilst studying are about gaining skills and knowledge whereas things you do in a commercial environment give you experience in solving real life problems.
Bottom line... play with the cool stuff whilst you still can!
Because you expect to create something useful that will live past your tenure as maintainer, I would suggest writing the majority in C#. What you can do to scratch your new-technology-itch, though, is pull out distinct, well-defined components that don't interact directly with the UI and write those in a separate F# assembly.
I've done something similar with a project that I've open sourced in the past. My fundamental UI logic (in this case, the V-VM parts of the M-V-VM) were in C# because it works so well with WPF technologies. Then, certain functionally-oriented components of the Model itself I broke out into a separate assembly and wrote in F# just to get some limited exposure to the language.
It's not a jump-with-both-feet approach to learning technology, so I probably didn't learn as much as I could have. An F#-only project wouldn't have taught me nearly as much about exposing F# functionality to the greater .Net world in a friendly way, either, though.
No matter what, the key in a situation like this is for you to have fun and enjoy what you're doing. :)
You can make F# business logics project (a dll).
And then the user interface in C#. And in user interface project you can add a reference to the F#-library.
This is a good solution in general when using Silverlight: The power of F# is (functional) programming but currently C# will have a better tool-support.
I know it's not in your list, but if you're interested in learning something new, you might consider GWT - You write your client in Java (which ought to be an easy jump from C#), and then the compiler turns the client side into JavaScript. Should be a bit more cross-platform compatible than Silverlight, and it's an interesting fusion of technologies (CSS, JavaScript, and Java aren't going anywhere in the near future).
I just gave a talk about programming reactive Silverlight applications in F# at London F# user-group meeting. The recording of the talk (and samples) are available here, so you can take a look at that.
Here are a few points you could consider:
I think F# has some very nice features that make programming this kind of applications more elegant than in C# (for example, you can nicely model program as a state machine and encode this direcly in code).
F# is still relatively new, but I believe that there is a decent chance that finding someone familiar with F# after three years will be much easier than today (and finding younger students who are interested to learn something new should be easier :-)).
I was surprised that there is already quite a demand for good F# programmers in the London area. This will be probably different in different places, but I think that F# is becoming a "nice-to-have" feature on CV for some jobs.
I'm presuming that this will be used in an intranet environment. Otherwise, I'd question whether the choice of Silverlight is really the best due to market penetration.
The second point I'd raise is that one of the really key skills for most web developers is Javascript. (Nowadays, that would be Javascript with a library like JQuery to manipulate the DOM, simplify AJAX, etc.) unless the application is particularly complex, there might be some merit in considering DHTML+Javascript as a starting point, and only looking at other technologies if it proves too much for that.
However, if you're set on going down the Silverlight route, then C# is by far the most likely to be supported. If you're still learning, then it's also the route that has the best documentation. F# has some excellent documentation around, but unfortunately not nearly as much as for C#.
You briefly mention the time and cost commitment. Unless you're quite comfortable with functional programming, F# is liable to take significantly longer, in part due to unfamiliarity and in part due to the amount of reference documentation to help you on your way.
While it it undoubtedly good to have knowledge of a range of programming languages under your belt, what's more valuable to most employers is a solid understanding of their language of choice - so diversifying too much can miss that. When looking to learn an unfamiliar programming language starting with something like solving Project Euler problems may present a better way of starting out, rather than diving straight into a major project with a new language. If you start in C#, you can always create an F# project that implements functions more suitable for its focus, and reference it from the C# one, to dip your toe in its waters while not automatically committing a lot of additional time to it.
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I'm a php developer and I want to broaden my knowledge base by learning a higher language (java, c#, c++). My specialty is in building web applications (ria etc). I'm trying to think of the appropriate path to take (hedging my bets so to speak) in terms of which language I should be focusing on. I love open source technology but at the same time C# seems to be getting a lot of notoriety. Despite the newer technologies available there still remains c++ which is the staple for many popular vendors including google and facebook (hip hop) in building scalable and robust cross platform apps.
Can anyone offer suggestions as to how I should be looking at this. Should I go Java, C# or C++). They all take time to master and I just want to choose a specialty.
Thanks
I find that I do less stuff in C++ than I used to. It has its place, but that place is growing smaller.
If you want to make a connection with web development, c++ probably isn't what you want. I'd agree with other posters. Java might be a good choice.
For my web-related projects, I've had a lot of fun with python and Django. I'm guessing Ruby on Rails would also be a possible thing to look at.
Since you mention scalable and robust... a lot of the big scalable and robust sites started out with other technologies and only switched when the massive traffic actually required it. Getting things finished is often better than making something scalable that never is finished.
C++ is not as popular for web development as PHP, Python, Java or C#. But it still can be successfully be used for web development using frameworks like CppCMS.
So if you generally want to learn more web technologies I would not suggest you using C++, but if you want to learn and explore new technologies it is very important language to learn as it opens very different kind of world.
C++ only comes in play when you work on large applications where you need low-level language features to write back end with performance in mind.
Java and C# are meant to boost your productivity. First of all, by taking care of memory management and offering a very functional class library.
Java seems to be a less actively developed language, due to the vendor position. It has however the largest ecosystem in terms of various libraries and third party products. Also cross-platform. Java jobs are plenty, but tend to pay less.
C# language is being quite actively developed, to the point that sometimes annoys developers (who say they don't manage to keep up). Through this however you get a modern and powerful language including huge .NET class library, which makes developers very productive and on average very happy. It is however not cross-platform (except for Mono experiment) and at some point of your growth you may have to pay for licenses (Visual Studio IDE above Express edition and SQL Server (if you use it and if you exceed 4 GB database limit)). Jobs are usually fewer but pay more.
For back-end development, I'd go with Java. It will give you the most options in terms of platforms. C# is a nice language, but still essentially limits you to Windows (Don't know much about the Mono port, maybe someone else can elaborate).
C++ is rearely used for web application development.
I would suggest Java there are some great APIs for web applications out there.
I have used Google Web Toolkit (GWT) in the past and found it a powerful API for web apps
Choose the language in which you feel more well, it will be one that will bring success.
If you are looking to improve your marketability, you definitely need to learn c#. C++ is my favorite language and I use it all the time to write back-end servers; but because it extends development times very few projects require it as a backend to a website. These days if you can code in PHP, C#, and in some cases Java then you have pretty much anything you need for 99% of web application developer jobs.
If you desire to branch into much larger niche markets (like working for Google), then C++ is definitely where you want to go; otherwise you'll be better served with C#.
Assuming you want to stay within the web development realm I agree with most on here and would go with Java. After getting comfortable with Java I would start looking into Groovy (and Grails) which is starting to gain a following in larger companies. Also, once you are comfortable the transition into C# isn't bad (that is what I am doing right now and it reminds me of Microsoft's awesome version of Java).
C++ is rarely used in web development, it's mainly on the desktop. And with my experience with C++, that would seem like an exorbitant amount of code just to make simple things appear on screen.
While Java is a decent web language, there is still alot of overhead. Most websites currently use PHP. Its powerful, easy to use, and easy to learn. Their isn't a large development cycle, and no complicated WAR and EAR deployment. And changes appear instantly, not like some Java based web servers who take minutes or hours to update.
If your scared of PHP, don't be! It runs extreamly popular sites like Facebook, and powers popular web programs like PhpBB, InvisionBoard, Drupal, Joomla, and Wordpress. Clearly php is doing something right or it wouldn't be all over the internet.
I would definitely take the Java/J2EE route. It's currently the most popular choice for web applications.
My impression (from my limited vantage point) is that C++ is becoming the next COBOL or C. That is, an enormous base of legacy applications but used for new development less and less frequently. If you expect to be writing new code rather than maintaining older code, I'd focus on something else.
If you're just looking to broaden your knowledge, then yes, C++ is a good language to sharpen your teeth on. If you're looking to use it in web development, then no, go with either Java or C# since C++ is rarely used in web development.
Do you realize there's no correct answer for this?
Since you seems to be more fond to C++ I would suggest yo go for it.
Personally and subjectively speaking of course, I think Java still would be the best choice.
There not much I can say about Java if you think is not worth it ( or the other way around, there nothing I can say bad about Java if that's what you want to learn next )
So there's no way to have a correct answer for this.
And, we all know the only correct answer is Java ;) </sarcasm>
My vote would be for both C++ (in the first place) and Java. And yes, I look at it from the Web Developer perspective. The reason for that being that things recently have been moving slowly but surely towards the cloud computing.
Notice how browsers start supporting websockets. Socket connections will eventually replace AJAX and Comet and will provide for more responsive and more robust web applications. The reason to learn C++ and/or Java is for writing backend scripts that run as daemons and service your web socket connections. Daemons in PHP are possible but not as fast or robust as C++ compiled apps.
At this time I'm a Linux supporter (having had extensive background with Windows servers and .NET) and I have and will continue suggesting clients going with Linux over Windows. You get more reliable user concurrency on Linux over Windows on the same equipment. I feel that the cloud will be split between the two, but employers who are knowledgeable will go with Linux. It's also our job to educate them. This is my reasoning for learning C++ at this time.
I just had to write a daemon for maintaining a 24x7 connection to a text messaging aggregate (users text operators who respond to multiple connections from a web interface), I went with C++. But I also plan to familiarize myself with Java, because of the huge available Java code base out there. It may come in handy.
I'm a computer scientist and i've been working with Java mostly to develop applications.
I just been hired in a company that makes projects with ArcGIS.
The company has hired na electrical engineer to develop the arcGIS projects.
This engineer used to customize ArcMap with VBA and lately extensions with .NET and C#.
I want to take a new path and start using the ArgGIS Engine with Java.
I want to know if this choice is right.Has any of you been developing with Engine-Java and how difficult is it(The use of JNI -for which i have little knoledge- is making it more difficult? ).
Also I have a little experience with .NET and c++ but not C#.I will have a big learning curve with this path?
Also which are the advantages and disadvantages and limitations of each method?
Hard question to answer.
The general opinion seems to be that C# is easy to learn if you know Java.
IMHO your biggest problem is going to be learning and manipulating the massive, convoluted ArcGIS object model. Choice of language is probably secondary.
My instinct is that C#/.Net is probably more popular for desktop programming with ArcGIS, so you'll get more community support with that. But I don't know. There's clearly a lot of folks using Java with ArcGIS - I suspect it's mostly server work, but I'm not sure. You might be able to figure out how popular ArcEngine with Java is by checking out the ESRI forum activity.
EDIT. You probably need to decide whether learning C# is going to be valuable in future to your employer (and your career), and balance that against some assessment of whether using Java with ArcGIS engine is unusual, and therefore more risky. Only you can answer the first question.
I absolutely in all respects suggest you stick with C#/.Net over Java. Last time i looked (take this with a grain of salt), the Java Library + COM inter-opt done with ArcGIS is pretty slow when working with certain elements (Arrays, oh god the arrays), also i am pretty sure Java will most likely be the next language to be put onto the cutting block in the near future(VB6 is now getting the axe). Also ESRI's java community is pretty tiny compared to their C#/.NET (however about 50 times bigger then their C++ :()
I would go for .NET and C#
If you know java and C++ than C# must be easy. You will just need to find your way through the .net framework that's all.
You will be safe with C# if you ever have to make some rich internet application in combination with arcgis and Silverlight (C#).
I have been a web developer for my entire development career. Nearly 100% microsoft focused the entire time. I have been using .Net, both C# and VB.Net, since beta. I now find myself in a position to where I have the opportunity to start doing some WinForms development in C# using the 3.5 framework. As with anything new, I am excited about the learning opportunity in front of me.
I am curious if anyone has any suggested books, articles, feedback, etc on the topic of transitioning from web development to winforms in the .Net world.
I think it goes without saying that the paradigms are very different. I really enjoy C# because of how easy it is to write great windows software.
Start by getting into the IDE and creating a real but small project. One of my first C# projects was a light weight budget program. That took me into many areas of C#, from XML handling to custom windows controls, to debugging, and more.
Experience is the best teacher. Take time to look at the function lists, and peruse the documentation. Get a feel for what is in the thousands of classes that make up .NET.
Reading books can be nice, but getting your hands dirty (in conjunction with a good book) is far more effective.
Set a goal and go for it, you will have no problem learning all about it. Don't be afraid to try things and take risks -- it helps you learn the system.
If you are moving from Web to Windows, there is a some significant differences between the two enviroments. Some good and some are bad. If your .Net based and moving to 3.5 look into WPF since it is the best of both worlds for Web developers converting right now.
I do know of some common mistakes made by web developers making the crossover. They would include:
Opening database connections on every form and every database calls. (In Windows Bad)
There is no ViewState concept or Stateless concept in Windows
I am sure there is a few more that can be added but right now I can't think of an exact list.
I do agree with gahooa, look at doing a small project and read as much as possible on the subject. Approach it as if you never developed before, and the skills you gained over the years will automatically kick in when needed.