Interesting article at c|net with James Gosling father of Java about Java
versus “C#”. What can I tell I work Java for three or four years now
and it’s a wanderfull language, I would not change it for anything
else (well maybe Python but not sure yet :). Writing server side apps with it is great, using Java
based CLI applications is OK, but when it comes to GUI it sucks big
time. Sorry that’s my experience. I don’t say that you can not use
Swing applications because it wouldn’t be true, you can use them, but
it’s a constant pain.

It’s not that it looks weird (like no other window around it), the font’s are just rude under Linux,
you can fix that. Skins can be used and that way it has a more native
look (not true with the feel do), all components can be made to display
antialiased fonts (quite shitty under Win, but quite an improvement
under Linux and probably Solaris) it’s that is so damn slow and huge
memory consumer.

Gosling says that not only server side development increased and I
believe him since I see all those XML related editors and tools come as
Java Swing (commercial) applications but I don’t know how other are about this but I rather use Vim or XEmacs than a sloppy sluggish UFO like application. And yes I (who just said that) am full time Java programmer.

Still there is little hope for Java GUI and it’s called Eclipse the Open Source project started by IBM.
We wrote a couple of small applications using SWT and JFace and the
result is just great. Java code with natively looking, feeling and
running results. That’s the way to go, not sure about the license how
open is but I guess it’s OK.