I would like to develop and sell a program over the Internet. My
question is which program would be better to program in, VB.Net or
Java? Consider ease of programing, cross-platform abilities, program
file size, etc in your answer.

Hi stephen,

Good day and thanks for your question.

As a programmer myself, my one-word answer is - Java.

Java is clearly the choice of programming laanguage considering all
your factors, plus security.

http://scottmace.typepad.com/imanager/2003/12/java_vs_vb_net.html has
an interesting graph showing the number of professional developers,
projected till 2007

An interesting statistic posted on a forum regarding jobs on monster.com:
Java = 3719
C++ = 1310
Perl = 1291
PHP = 230
ASP.NET = 122
C# = 102
VB.NET = 79


The following series of articles compare Java and .NET

Java vs. .NET, part 1 - Usability
weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/292

Java vs. .NET, part 2 - The Nature of the Beast
weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/325

Java vs. .NET, part 3 - Open Standards
weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/383

Java vs. .NET, part 4 - Java is a language, .NET is not
weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/388

Java vs. .NET, part 5 - Rich thin clients
weblogs.java.net/pub/wlg/396


I hope this has helped you make your decision. Since you're in
college, you should be looking at what is hot in the job market.

Thank you for using this service and have a nice day

Warm regards,
aditya2k

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Request for Answer Clarification by stephenb2004-ga on 11 Jan 2004 11:34 PST

Hello, thank you for your response, however your answer is not the
information I am looking for and considering the cost, I would expect
much more than a "one-word" answer.
You bring a different element considering the job market, but I am 57
yrs old and will only be programming to create one application with
the ability to update the application and continued maintainance of
same.
Also, the webblogs articles seem to be written by programmers for
programmers. Please give me the answers in your own words.
So, would you please expand your answer to include, which program is
easier to learn and program in, and why. If Java has better
cross-platform capibilities? Please explain further. And include
anything else that would help me in understanding "Which program would
be better to program in?"

Kind Regards,

Steve

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Clarification of Answer by aditya2k-ga on 12 Jan 2004 20:43 PST

Hi again,

The age factor definitely makes things different. Since you want to
develop only one application, there are a lot of factors to take into
account.
- You have to decide whether you want your application to be web-based
or application based. By this I mean, do you want customers to be able
to run the program over the web (by this, I do not mean downloading
the file). Or, do you want the user to download the setup file,
install the application and run it from their computer. For the
former, Java gets the nod, and for the latter, VB .net gets the nod.
- Security. Does your application involve the use of potentially
sensitive data. If you want maximum encryption of data, you need to
use Java.
- Java is platform independent and applications developed using Java
can be run on any platform. But then again, most home users use
Windows, and hence VB .net is the choice. It depends on your targetted
audience. If you are targetting network professionals and engineers,
use Java. If you are targetting home users, use VB .net

At this point of time, I can provide this much information to you. If
you can further detail what you have in mind, I can give you more
information.

Warm regards,
aditya2k

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Request for Answer Clarification by stephenb2004-ga on 13 Jan 2004 10:00 PST

Hello - thanks for your clarification. I believe we are really close
to an answer. Let me clear some things up in that I am under the
believe that a Java program can be created that can be downloaded over
the Internet to a home machine for use? (read other comments below)
Also, I was trying to get away from vb.net in that my customers that
were on win 95 and win 98 would have to download a 25mb file so the
developed application could be read? I guess from what I have read and
what you have told me, I am leaning towards Java "if a Java
application can be downloaded and run as a "stand-alone" from the
customers pc.............

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Clarification of Answer by aditya2k-ga on 13 Jan 2004 11:22 PST

That is correct. Java applications can be run on a stand alone PC.

I didn't quite understand what you meant by this sentence:
"Also, I was trying to get away from vb.net in that my customers that
were on win 95 and win 98 would have to download a 25mb file so the
developed application could be read?"
What is this 25MB file?

---

Request for Answer Clarification by stephenb2004-ga on 13 Jan 2004 12:45 PST

The 25mg file is what makes a vb.net run on any win os below
xp........ It is included in the os in xp and above but you need to
download it for any win os below......

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Clarification of Answer by aditya2k-ga on 16 Jan 2004 22:14 PST

Oh, OK...the .NET Framework.

Yes, downloading a 25 MB file for users using a dial-up connection
could be a real pain.

Consideringease of programming, program file size, etc.  Any language
would do you fine.  However you mentioned cross-platform abilities,
and since I don't really think you want to develope two sets of source
code one for Windows and one for *nix.  I would suggest you go with
Java.

As a side note with the advent of Mono you Java code will be able to
be ported to .Net in the future if that is the way you want to go. 
Microsoft provides a tool that ports Java to C#.  So when Mono is
stable enough for consumer use you will have to ask this question
again.

But currently for everything you want Java is your best bet.

Java

Just to be clear on the subject. I want to be able to have customers
download the "developed" application and have it run on their machine.
It should be a "stand alone" application and the customer would not
have the source code or be able to look at the programming. I hope
these comments are written so a programmer can read them. As you can
tell, I am not a programmer, but would like to take a college course
and learn how to write code.

Don't worry, your program will be compiled so it won't be readable by
anyone who get it (unless you send them the sources, of course).

With Java the user will have to download the Java Runtime (which is
14.5 MB) if they do not already have it. So both languages require
some large download besides your program code. Also with Java the
process of starting your program is more complicated than VB.NET
(where you can just double click). With Java they will need to start
it on a command prompt or you will need to include a batch file to
start the program. Are you really concerned about cross platform
capabilities. If so Java is the only viable way now. Otherwise I would
tend towards VB.NET