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I am a competent C++ developer. I understand and use polymorphism, templates, the STL, and I have a solid grasp of how streams work. For all practical purposes, I've done no Java development. I'm sure some of you were in a similar situation at one point when you had to learn Java. How long did it take you to become a competent Java programmer?
I think that learning the language is not difficult. In fact, I used to be a full time C++ developer, and at some point I started writing Java code. But the thing is that I don't remember ever learning Java, so I guess I just figured it as I went. I've been doing full time Java for a long time now.
If you are well familiar with C++, you may want to read a list of the major differences (e.g., everything is dynamically-bound) and then start practicing on an environment (just download Eclipse). The small differences are the main thing you would have to get adjusted to.
Now that Java supports generics, one of the major switching pains is gone. Multiple inheritance, while not supported, is not a big deal if you get used to interfaces, and in fact having interfaces rather than abstract classes with pure virtual functions (PVFs) improves readability.
To me Java is a nice and friendly and relaxing sandboxed version of C++. I don't have to worry about general protection faults (GPFs), I don't have to worry about memory leaks, I don't have to worry about messing with pointers. However, don't let that confuse you, there are still plenty of opportunities to screw up royally, and they're sometimes even nastier to detect.
Just take the leap. If you have the instinct, it shouldn't be a problem.
I went the opposite way. Started with Java, then moved to C and C++. For my own personal experience, it was much easier to learn Java than C/C++ (C++ especially).
Java in many ways is meant to be C++ with many of the undefined and unnecessarily complicated portions removed or simplified. IMHO, it had great success with that goal. As a result it's a very easy language to learn and use. Especially for someone who is familiar with C++.
The actual time it will take is very dependent upon the person learning the language. However, I think it's safe to say it will take less time to become competent in Java than it did in C++.
Shouldn't be too bad. The syntax and classes should be very easy for you to grasp. There are some differences but none of it is too challenging.
The hardest part is more about learning the packages, since those will be different. The built in Java classes and functions, and then to use Java in a practical manner, you'll need to learn J2EE or whatever you might be actually using it for. The latter part will probably take more of your time than the language itself.
If you're already a competent programmer (especially in C++) then Java doesn't take long to learn at all. The books I would recommend (in order) for anyone who wants to learn Java are:
Head First Java
Thinking in Java
Effective Java
You may find that you zip through Head First Java rather quickly, given your experience. For that reason I suggest you check it out of the library and skim it before moving on to Thinking in Java.
Also check out Sun's Java Tutorials.
C++ to Java: 1 week.
Java to C++: 1 month.
As Tom Hawtin wrote, the key issue is how you define competent.
You'll be able to pick-up the language fairly easily, but it's the idioms and the libraries that you will have to learn. And there are quite a few differences between niches you work in (e.g. embedded or enterprise), and between libraries that supposedly solve the same problems. Here are a few examples:
In business/enterprise apps, you generally work with databases. There you can have:
plain JDBC
SQL mapper (iBatis), wrapper around verbose and repetitive JDBC
ORM solution (Hibernate), with a philosophy of it's own
With desktop UIs, you have two competing platforms:
Swing, a part of JRE
SWT/JFace, from Eclispe foundation, originated by IBM, with native UI support
Web frameworks are too many to mention, with different ideas of representing the UI, configuration, folder/package structure etc.
DI (dependency injection) is common in business apps, either by 3rd party frameworks like Spring, or as a part of EJB3 standard. But, I don't think it is ever used in embedded set-up.
It would be fair to say this is just a tip of the iceberg.
Back in 1995 when I did it, it took me about half a day to get comfortable with the tools and basic ideas, a day or two to get the language, a week to get the more obscure parts of the language (there were less of them at the time) and a month to get the libraries (there were WAY less of them at that time).
Now I would guess that the tools and basic language will take as much time, a couple of weeks to a month for the obscure parts of the language (depends on what parts you hit, and when). The basic libraries will be a month to two months (java.lang, java.util, and a few others). The remaining class libraries 6 months to forever depending on what you need to learn and how often the keep updating them :-)
I know C++, and had to work with Java once and picked it up in 2 weeks. Of course there were quite a few surprises but it's easy.
I have C++ background. Picking up Java took me few days - the language seems really simple - at least its basis. I still consult my Java guru - google quite a bit, but it's usually a matter of exploring API and standard libraries. Java has some annoyances, but you should spot most of them them easily and quickly.
I was recommended Thinking in Java (there's an ebook for free), but was never persistent enough to read through it. I don't write rocket-science code in Java and to do it, my skills are sufficient.
Having said that, it would be good to have better formal knowledge of the language. At the moment I'm thinking about studying for SCJP, which seems a sensible way of learning, plus you will get well-recoginized programming certificate once you pass it (I've heard it's not worth much, but still it may be a motivation...).
You can also try Java Black Belt - the answers frequenty surprises me. After taking few tests I wonder how my programs even compile, which suggests I'm probably not the most competent Java programmer around :)
How would you define competent? For my money, most professional (as in they do it for money) Java programmers never manage to reach competent.
These days, a programming language derives much of its power from its libraries and accepted idioms.
While it takes relatively short time to learn the Java language, learning to use the available libraries (collections, io, etc.) effectively will probably take significantly more time.
I think there are two approaches to meaning of term "competent Java programmer".
If it is about lexems, syntax and terms of OOP I began to completly understand Java before 2 (two) days of learning.
But firstly you will be charmed by impossibility to shoot your own leg ;)
But if it is case of embeded class system (i.e. packages), APIs references, tips-and-tricks and etc., it takes about half-year to feel yourself friendly with Java. I think.
I too learnt C++ first and then Java. It took very less time as I was already familiar with OOPS concepts. In the initial phase of learning I was really happy with new concepts in Jave like garbage collector. I referred The Complete Reference by Herbert Schildt and it did help me to get the syntax quickly.
I started from C++ and learned C#/.NET. That didn't take long.
As C#/.NET is developed very near to Java (they used many of Java's base techniques such as GC, reference classes, JIT, ...) I think it is not that hard to learn Java.
I would go with six to eight weeks.
Shouldn't take you more than a day or two to learn the language, but you might have to spend a few weeks on the class library: how to use collections, the concurreny package, reflection, logging, swing/awt, dynamic proxies, MBeans etc.
i learned c++ at a small age of 15 and became a professional software programmer. But when i searched for job there was only job available for java developers.I thought it was hard to change my language.So just for trial i Downloaded java compiler and just for fun typed some code and i found it is not much different than c++. and only after 6 hours of research and learning i became a java developer .so it is very easy to switch between c++ to java.
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I have a history of hating Java, having used it pretty regularly in the late 90's during the 'slow as balls' era. As such, I never really learned it well. From what I understand, Java is actually a pretty good language to use these days. I've been thinking about diving into it because of Jython and Clojure. That is to say, I'd like to program in Java and use inline Jython or Clojure where appropriate. But truthfully, I'll probably just be programming in Jython/jRuby and calling up clojure from there.
Which brings me to my question. I know both of these languages can be called from Java, but is that necessarily good practice? Should I even bother learning java if I just want to use Jython as the primary language? Seeing as how that's a large part of my motivations here, I'd like to know that I'm not terribly misguided before jumping in. I'm aware there is a very high risk for projects to become a kludge if done in multiple languages like this.
I'm still learning about the JVM and the like, so I apologize if this question is painfully obvious.
Jython can be viewed as a cross compiler from Python to the Java Virtual Machine. As such, to get the most out of Jython you'll obviously have to learn Python, and probably will need to learn Java.
You can skip some of the Java learning, but at the end of the day, Java and the JVM grew up together. That means that Java code tends to lend understanding of the JVM. It is possible to gain understanding of the JVM without Java, but that's not a path well travelled. Any Jython code that imports a Java library will immediately have you searching Java documentation, so if you avoid leaning Java you're going to learn it piecemeal anyway.
You will have to decide if a piecemeal approach or a formal approach is more appropriate for you and your situation. A lot of deciding which path to take is knowing how you learn best.
As far as the "slow as balls" period of the 90's, that's when I was learning Java. Personally, I feel it is better to describe it as "slow as balls if you did incredibly stupid things with Java". Now I think people have built up a sufficient skill set to avoid translating C directly into Java. That said, I do occasionally encounter the 2000+ line method, so perhaps I'm being a bit rosy in my projection. The entire JVM is laid out in such a manner that good object oriented code runs faster, and if you're constantly trying to go to "other" objects for all the data you need locally, you'll just stack thrash the JVM.
Regardless of opinions, the JVM is now the hot Java item. There has been "other language" support by one means or the other for over a decade now; however, the excitement around Domain Specific Languages seems to have sparked an interest in compilation technologies and the JVM. The other languages benefit from the JVM being an easy target to hit with built-in cross platform support, excellent performance, huge availability of libraries, and generally good documentation. Learning Java and the JVM will help you with a lot of the JVM supported languages, as many of them don't flesh out their library space in favour of hooking into a pure Java library.
I'd say it's worth knowing Java even if you plan on only using other JVM languages. I use JRuby and Scala, and have played around with Clojure. If you are building things to run on the JVM, knowing Java is a bit like knowing C when working natively–you don't have to know C, but if you do, you can write the bits that need speed in C and wrap them in a Ruby or Python library or whatnot.
It's worth knowing the basic principles of how Java works in terms of things like interfaces and annotations and how the classpath works because otherwise you are working with basically a leaky abstraction. What happens when your interop isn't very good? This is especially true if you are planning to do Clojure and Jython!
The other reason to know Java is simply because if you are using code in the Java ecosystem, you have to be able to read and write Java. You need to write a library? Yes, you can probably write it in Clojure, but if you want other JVM language users to be able to use it, you should probably have written it in good, idiomatic Java. Scala is close enough to Java for this purpose; Clojure or Ruby or Python, not so much. Just being able to read and comprehend Java programs is very important too.
The other great benefit is simply that you get more libraries and they are better tested. You need a double-ended queue? Check the Java Collections Framework. Good random number generation? java.security.SecureRandom. UIs? Well, Swing, AWT and SWT are... okay, bad example. Knowing the benefits and shortcomings of these only comes from doing some Java programming and learning the various ways not to suck at Java.
From a couple of years experience of using Clojure (plus many more years of Java...) here is my perspective:
You don't strictly need any Java experience to write Clojure code - Clojure is a full language in its own right and you can write perfectly capable programs without using any Java.
You will need to set up the JVM environment - the Java environment has some rules about where code gets loaded from (i.e. the "classpath") that need to be followed to get a working environment. Not a big deal, and most IDEs will do it for you, but it can be a hurdle for people completely new to the JVM world. I'd suggest careful following of the setup instructions for whichever IDE/toolset you choose.
There are some Java-related concepts that are helpful to understand - for example, Clojure harnesses Java exception handling features with (try ... (catch ...)) etc. so it's useful to be somewhat familiar with the Java approach to exception handling.
Ultimately you will probably want to use Java APIs - bacause a huge amount of the value of being on the JVM in the first place is in having access to the huge diversity of libraries and tools that are available in the Java ecosystem. You don't need to write any Java code to use Java APIs from Clojure, but you do need to know enough Java (method signatures, data types etc.) to be able to read the JavaDoc documentation of the APIs and convert this into an appropriate Clojure function call. Often, this is as simple as (.someJavaMethod someJavaObject param1 param2) but sometimes it can be more complex (e.g. when you need to instantiate a subclass of some Java class to pass as a parameter)
Java isn't a bad language to learn anyway - while I'll readily admit Java has some weak points (as do all languages!), it's still a great, simple, high performance, cross-platform, object-oriented language that has a lot of value. Even if you only do a few short tutorials and never write anything substantial in Java, I'd still recommend it for the learning experience.
I believe most of the above would also apply to Jython.
I can't speak for Jython, but if you want to really get to grips with clojure, you want to understand its trade-offs compared to Java, especially wrt memory/gc and the basics of Clojure/Java interop. You also need at least an abstract understanding of how the clojure collections are implemented unless you really don't care about performance - that's not to say that clojure is particularly inefficient, but more the opposite: the implementation of its immutable collections is fairly unique and tailored to clojure's stance on persistence and performance and it helps to understand the underlying details when you're trying to improve on performance issues.
For all of that, I don't think you actually need a lot of Java knowledge. Being able to read Java fairly well, a basic understanding of the concepts, and a knowledge of where to find the documentation is probably enough.
I think if you want to do a hybrid Clojure/Jython project the interoperation details are most crucial. That probably means you have to know in some detail how classes, interfaces, some of the standard library and (to a minimal extend) generics work in Java and how to deal with all of those in your chosen languages since the interoperation necessarily reduces to the more basic Java constructs. Some of this is tricky and can be confusing, and in clojure's case at least the documentation often refers back to Java concepts and documentation for obvious reasons, so you have to make sure you read both, closely.
I would definitely learn java and learn it well, not only because Clojure is built on top of the JVM but also to get anything done you will be calling Java libraries all the time, and you may even need to dip into Java occassionally.
On another note it would be expand your mind to understand Java's OO concepts and pain poaints too and this will enhance your undersatnding of Clojure too.
Above all, study the Java libraries. Part of the joy of using the JVM is having access to "it's already been done" libraries, as well as to parts of the core language that accomplish certain tasks with optimum performance on the JVM. In addition, some languages (e.g. Clojure) purposefully dip directly into Java and don't completely discourage it in your own code, so if you want to be able to read others' code Java basics are a must.
As for the rest of "learning Java" (design patterns, concurrency in Java, etc.), I wouldn't waste your time unless/until specific projects requirements demand it.
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I am a java developer and I want to know,
what is the main benefit from learning a language such as Scala or Groovy?
You can get the same benefit from learning another JVM language as learning any new language. It increases your understanding of programming in general and more importantly, it adds another tool to your toolbox.
So the next time you have to solve a problem, you may reach for a nail gun instead of a hammer.
To be more specific, Groovy is a good language for mocking up code quickly, and Scala, while I've never used it, is suppose to great for writing concurrent applications due to it's functional approach. As others have mentioned, the JVM languages can interact with Java code. Which can be useful for adding onto legacy systems or for mocking up pieces of a application quickly.
Some good reasons that come to mind:
They have features that Java doesn't have and that you may find useful in certain circumstances.
They use different programming paradigms, different way of thinking.
Learning other languages opens your mind.
Learning languages makes you conscious about their respective strengths and weaknesses.
They are getting more and more attention and better JVM support (with Java 7).
Actually, maybe ask yourself the reverse question:
Why not learn an addiitional JVM language?
The other answers here have very good points, but there's one thing I'm missing.
A good coder rarely identifies himself as a 'Java developer', a 'Python developer' or any ' developer'. Learning another language (be it a JVM language or not) will make you understand there's a lot more in the world to learn.
If you're satisfied with only one language, it usually means you're oblivious to the problems it has, and that there are many tasks that are better suited for other languages.
This is why the Pragmatic Programmers encourage every programmer to learn a language a year.
The languages you've mentioned practice a different programming paradigm that could help you be more productive. They are also more fun to work with.
Languages such as Scala and Clojure run on the JVM and exhibit great performance in multi-core systems without imposing synchronization requirements.
And of course you are still able to use the full wealth of libraries that are available for Java.
Because then you'll know a new language, which means a broader skill set and another way of looking at problems. But because Groovy and Scala run on the JVM and you know Java, you can integrate existing libraries and code if you want or need to.
from http://groovy.codehaus.org/:
"Groovy is like a super version of Java. It can leverage Java's enterprise capabilities but also has cool productivity features like closures, builders and dynamic typing. If you are a developer, tester or script guru, you have to love Groovy."
So in many cases it does make sense to use Groovy over Java; For instance in Java unit tests!
Scripting language advantages inside jvm. Seamless interaction with compiled java code.
I know with Groovy, you can load scripts (from files) at runtime from your Java application. This allows me to customize the behavior of application actions at a client site without requiring me to recompile code. It's rather lovely.
Sorry more questions then answers..
What would you spend your time on if you are not learning a new language?
Why are you limiting yourself to JVM languages?
Would it be of more benefit to learn test driven development?
What about learning standard design patents?
What are you trying to achieve with your investment of time?
Learning a language is always good, however if you don’t learn them very well and use them you don’t get a great benefit, as you need to be able to “think in a language” so as to broaden your mind.
Using more than one language in a company leads to lots of additional long term costs so you may gain more by learning how to programme better in your main language, only you can decide.
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I need to have an at-home project now that I'm working on Python/Django at work. I'd like to learn something new, so I was thinking of checking out Java.
What's the most well respected web framework for deploying Java web apps?
The only reason I'm not checking out ruby on rails is because of how similar the ORM and other parts are to Django.
Alternatively, does anyone think I should take a look at seaside/smalltalk? Can anyone explain why I should?
Haskell is something I'll consider if anyone can make a good argument for it. I'd need a web framework and database access library to go along with it though.
I'd consider factor/forth if I wasn't so accustomed to the stack paradigm via x86/asm. I'd be willing to hear any counter-arguments to this as well.
See also: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9v3uf/asm_c_python_perl_lisp_scheme_programmer_looking/
With that range of skills, why don't you learn something more outside your comfort zone, like carpentry or painting, or any of hundreds of other skills that have little to do with your field.
At some point, all languages are the same and you'll get scant benefit from learning another.
Whereas, with something totally different, you will become a much more well-rounded individual. I, for one, like painting and golf, even though I'm not that good at either of them - when I asked my golf instructor what my handicap was, he said it was an inability to hit the ball straight :-)
I find that I enjoy doing stuff I'm not accustomed to since it's a genuinely new experience. Learning another computer skill is a easy thing to do after a while and hence the pleasure from doing it is reduced.
Don't get me wrong, I like to keep up with developments in the field but, for the most part, the brand new technologies give nothing to my career since most work I do is on stable technologies. You may be in a different situation.
Haskell is pretty popular these days as a mind-bender, though it may not hurt as much for you if you already know Lisp and Scheme. It's purely functional, so there are no side effects to anything. You have to use monads to print text and do other things that require a certain order. It's also completely lazily evaluated, so you can make infinite lists in Haskell and not have to worry about memory consumption.
The Haskell Platform may not be fully complete, but is intended to be a portable set of libraries for Haskell. It's list of packages includes some for CGI handling and (X)HTML generation.
Sounds like you're into web programming, so smalltalk/seaside is a great one. IMO everyone should learn smalltalk even if they never use it, and seaside is a really different web framework than what you are used to. Django, fer instance, is all about REST, while the seaside philosophy basically says "to hell with REST."
And if you've never coded in an image based environment there's just something about it that seems... natural, magical even. Lots of IDE functionality that originated in smalltalk have been implemented in file based language IDE's, but it always feels like an unnatural grafting, where those same features feel as if they simply belong there in smalltalk.
Check out Pharo. Give it enough time to get used to the fact that there's no menu bar and see if it doesn't grab you.
I do suggest Java. When I was looking for a job, I noticed lots of openings for Java developers, so there's a lot of it out there, and you might someday have a chance to use your Java skills.
And then you should try out Scala. Scala is a sort of Python-ish language that uses functional programming to make very scalable programs. Unlike Python, in Scala you do need to declare types of things. Scala runs on the Java Virtual Machine so it can be used in Java shops.
http://www.scala-lang.org/
It's possible I'm just giving you this answer because these are the next two languages I intend to learn, myself.
You probably should also spend a little time playing around with Javascript. Javascript was sort of intended to be a "stealth Lisp" and I imagine you would pick it right up.
http://www.crockford.com/javascript/javascript.html
http://bc.tech.coop/blog/030920.html
And heck, have some fun with it. Write a game or something!
From your list I'd say you are due for a completely object oriented language.
You could check out Ruby, but I'd recommend JavaScript since it offers a lot of interesting things you probably wouldn't expect, like support for closures, higher-order functions and prototypical inheritance - plus it's kinda fun and becoming very popular.
I'd need a web framework and database access library to go along with it though.
If all your programming is based on web frameworks and SQL databases, you will only be solving the same problems with different syntax if you switch languages.
Build something using a different data model - Prolog, Conceptual Graphs, RDF, Linda/JavaSpaces, XQuery, HDF5, ASN.1, or a different network model - XMPP pub-sub, SNMP, a zero-config mesh or a swarm of ZigBee enabled Arduinos.
Maybe look at languages like Oz, Io or Erlang/OTP, which are distributed rather than primarily monolithic like the ones you mention.
What about the Java Spring framework?
http://www.springsource.org/
Or maybe NHibernate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHibernate
At the end of the day its up to you. As I only listed two out of many. When I am programming a static language professonally... I try to learn a dynamic or scripting language. And vice versa.
Also, I try to learn something totally different or outside my realm... maybe even Powershell or Korn shell or ActionScript.
What's the most well respected web framework for deploying Java web apps?
There is no single web framework more respected than others. Struts2, Spring MVC, Stripes or Wicket (which is event based) are all good candidates (I personally like Stripes). But you'll need a bit more for the persistence (Hibernate or JPA) and for the glue (Spring).
Grails (Groovy on Rails) is another good option.
Alternatively, does anyone think I should take a look at seaside/smalltalk? Can anyone explain why I should?
Well, I guess that learning Smalltalk can't hurt but I don't see a good reason to choose Smalltalk over a moderner language like Java. Regarding tooling, I don't know anything in this field except VisualAge for Smalltalk but, personally, I'd really stay far away from it.
Haskell is something I'll consider if anyone can make a good argument for it. [...]
Looks like I'm not the right guy for that.
I'd consider factor/forth if I wasn't so accustomed to the stack paradigm via x86/asm. I'd be willing to hear any counter-arguments to this as well.
Same as above.
I would have suggested mastering Lisp (in some relevant dialect) so even if you have Lisp and Scheme on your resume, it might be worthwhile to REALLY learn deeply. See http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html for reasons why.
Otherwise Prolog might interest you. It is related to SQL but for programming instead of communicating with an organised set of data tables.
If you want to target web technologies I only have experience with Java. Here the newest Java Server Faces (JSF) allow for using Ajax to update pages, and Google Web Toolkit allow for very rich component based web pages. These might be juicy enough to interest you enough to learn enough Java to find them fun :)
I don’t see C# and the .NET platform on your list. And I am surprised no one mentioned it yet.
I have worked in C# for 5 years. I have looked at some Java code but I have never coded in it. I believe that Java is somewhat similar to C# enough so that if you become proficient in one I think you could pick up the other is a matter of a few days.
One idea might be to create your own language / compiler. The one I would like to create (or see created) would be an Assembly Language level compiler with an object oriented syntax that would be very much like Python… but make it typed language. You could start with the basic raw binary types db, dw, dd, and then add on to these … The functions and methods could have assembly language freely mixed in the high-level code. Now, that would be a fun project, I think ?
Definitely try Haskell or Smalltalk or Forth.
I would say Smalltalk would be most useful while Forth would get you away from the x86 asm and C bullshit. There's more than one way to code close-to-the-hardware stuff.
Why don't you try OCaml? And if you ever happen (sadly) to return to .NET world - you will have knowledge of F# in your baggage.
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Are there any good, portable, open-source, high-level, statically-typed, imperative, object-oriented, garbage collected, safe languages/runtimes with reasonable performance besides Mono and Java? Mono is nice, but it is a Microsoft technology, and I'm kind of afraid of using it (I'm not sure how rational this fear is). The problem with Java is that it is just too simple (no unsigned data types, no structs, etc.).
Mono isn't a Microsoft technology. .NET is, but Mono isn't - Mono is an open-source implementation of the ECMA-334 and ECMA-335 international standards. Yes, they originated from Microsoft, but Mono itself is not Microsoft technology.
Not that Mono is a language, of course - C# is the language. But then languages aren't really open-source or not - implementations are.
It does sound like you've probably got an irrational fear of C# - and likewise of Java. There are certainly things I'd like to see in Java (and I significantly prefer C#), but it's still perfectly possible to write very significant applications in it.
I'd like to point out Vala, which is a language based on the syntax of C#, but which targets a C compiler (similar to Eiffel) and a lightweight, self-hosted runtime. It lacks garbace collection, though.
Eiffel fulfills all your requirements
On the CLR, there is Boo.
Boo is a new object oriented
statically typed programming language
for the Common Language Infrastructure
with a python inspired syntax and a
special focus on language and compiler
extensibility
The Boo Manifesto is a good starting point.
C++ with a garbage collector? Though you issues with Java are not all that much of a show stopper (unless you can detail why you need those things, on the face of it those arguments are usually not very sound, but sometimes they are).
Well, having no unsigned data type in java is rarely considered as a problem.
But what about Lisp - it was the language to introduce garbage collection, and probably the most powerful language at all.
Check the performance comparison by Peter Norvig (the google's research director). You might be surprised that Lisp beats even C++ in some areas and Java in all.
However Lisp seems not to be a main stream language - I'm wondering why's that?
Because it is kind of minimalistic - it probably could not be beaten in power by any current or future language to come.
(I guess what makes C# or Java so popular is not just the language but the libraries.)
How can you say that java is too simple?
Ok, one of the reasons for developing Java is to make it less complicated than C++ which has a 900+ page of specification. However, it's much more complicated than C.
About 10 years ago I attended a course by Les Hatton and he did research on making your C program safer to use. He argued that almost no-one could remember the 140 pages of C standard, so it would be exceptionally hard to understand something like C++.
Of course, your target may not require safety, but if you do it's something to remember.
scala is less verbose than java and it runs wherever java runs, as it compiles to java bytecode. twitter reimplemented some of their core infrastructure in scala.
There's always Python and Ruby
First of all, Mono is not Microsoft technology.
At second, there are only two serious Virtual Machines (VM) with mentioned features - .Net/Mono and Java. But, setting aside requirement of statically-typed language, you can draw an attention at newcoming Parrot Virtual Machine (Wikipedia article about Parrot).
And, of course, Ruby, Python Erlang, etc. are also crossplatform VM (for single dynamic language)
You may take a look on the D programming language.
But to be honest? I'd suggest to stay away of mono/C#. Why? Many reasons...
Also, for practical puroses take Java or C++.
Java is as good as C# even it is little bit different. C++ is as good as well because 99% of problems of GC are solved using reference counting so...
If you want to learn this in order to be able to be more suited for a job, I suggest you consider either .NET (if you want to go for a Microsoft platform) or Java (if you want to go for platform independence), and do a lot of coding. Both are very large platforms!
Anything else would be niche languages being used in only a few places, which can be very nice but is unlikely to land you a job anywhere but in those few places.
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What is best language to learn next to Java?
Criteria for this secondary language are:
High potential of being the "next big thing". e.g. If the market for Java open positions hypothetically dies/dwindles, what is the next programming language that will have a bigger market for open positions? Another way to frame this question is: If I own a small company that implements solutions in Java, what is the other language that I should use?
Can produce web applications.
Can produce desktop applications.
Easy and fun to learn.
Wide range of available libraries and frameworks (free or open source) that enhance and speed up your solutions.
Python almost meets all of them, but I don't know about being "the next big thing", but hey, Google uses it, and I think its popularity is raising.
It's a scripting language, btw.
I use it for web applications (using django), and you can definitely create desktop applications with it (although I haven't done that myself).
It is easy and fun! (although this is quite subjective, but it's tons easier and "funner" than Java)
For employability: Any of the .Net languages, probably C#. Then you're well set for most potential customers.
For stretching yourself: something functional (F# to cover .Net too?), or something Lisp, or Smalltalk - was once the next big thing but it probably never will be again, but still a language that changed signficantly my approach to programming in other languages.
If you are expert in java, you will probably really enjoy groovy.
It is backwards compatible with java and has a lot of the nice features of ruby and similar dynamic languages. It also has what is shaping up to be a nice rails-a-like in grails, and a good object-relational mapping framework in GORM.
What is really nice about it is you can mix and match groovy classes and java classes. So if you find yourself forgetting the groovy syntax, you can just drop into Java. And of course you can get at any Java library from it. At the same time you can benefit from groovy's really concise idioms for things like Beans properties.
(By the way it meets all your criteria listed above, too)
Learn a language that will probably not be the Next Big Thing™. Learning a new language usually means learning new concepts (unless you learn one that's very similar to another one you already know).
Learning new concepts has great advantages, no matter which language you program in, so it's a pretty good thing to do.
If you limit yourself to a language that's going to be the Next Big Thing™, then chances are that you'll find a lot of familiar concepts and only relatively few new ones (the IT world is conservative like that).
Learn something that looks interesting to you. Not only will you be able to learn faster, if it's interesting, but you'll also have more fun doing so!
How about Scala or JavaScript? Functional paradigms will stretch your thinking further and will be of benefit whether they are "the next big thing", or not.
Go for a different paradigm : functionnal, lisp, haskell, ocaml, erlang, scala, etc.
If you don't have any religious issues with Microsoft, I would argue for C#.
The only downside I can see is that it's not cross-platform. Otherwise it fits your requirements as far as I can see
Your criteria fairly closely matches Python and Ruby, they both have a growing market base in Web development, and are fully capable of producing desktop applications as well. Whilst they are fairly closely matched, Python has a slightly larger library of re-usable code modules, whilst Ruby's strength leans more to it's well-established frameworks.
As a side-note, You should ensure that you don't stop at 2 languages. Start learning a second one, then pick up a third and even fourth as you progress. Learning new programming languages becomes a more trivial task as the general learning curve evens out.
I must second Gilles here; to learn a different paradigm is very rewarding, and functional programming is [not unlikely to be] the Next Thing.
Erlang is great both in flexibility, ease of use (once you grasp the basic ideas) and - the best of all - it it very well suited for the high parallelism of future and current hardware. It also covers all your five criteria, though it might be more of a "server" language than a "desktop" language.
If you are interested, I suggest the book Programming Erlang by Joe Armstrong.
Personally, I'd go with Ruby and focus on running your Ruby scripts under JRuby. this way you get the expressiveness of Ruby with the JVM running your code. I've seen Rails and Merb running under Glassfish. Might seem odd, but you get all the nice instrumentation of Glassfish with your Ruby code. Things like JMX, RMI, etc. work well with JRuby.
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