Regarding the recent revival of C# v. Java". I disagree that there are trivial language differences. To put it another way, cvs and svn are awfully similar from 50,000 feet also. I think if anyone discounts the advantages of svn over cvs would need their head examined. You might notice that the Java portion of the article lists several small stumbling blocks, this adds up when you are dealing with medium to large applications.

I do hope they actually start using Java instead of Python, however. I am confident that I will be able to run those programs via mono (IKVM kicks ass) at some point anyways. Will you ever be able to say the same for the other way?

I will agree that debating the language can take a definite back seat to more important reasons that I would favor an ECMA 334 and 335 based environment for adoption in GNOME.

• ISO and ECMA standards
• being used in applications today, and ever increasing
• language-neutral
• runtime (JIT) instead of static compilation
• the great people who work on it

This is what the masses of internal IT departments and 3rd party developers want. As far as I can tell, these groups are adopting .NET (both C# and VB.NET) in great numbers, in particular through the colleges and universities. I don't think it would be wise to underestimate this effect if you intend to be statistically significant in desktop market or mind share.

Then again, if they don't see the language as very important why do they insist on making it harder for me as an independent person to do what I want with free software. I'm not going around telling them they can't use Java or Python. Hopefully, we can go back to moving forward instead of ignoring the issue entirely. It's extremely disconcerting that I even feel compelled to have to argue about this.

I'm probably wasting my time just writing this.