Java or C# for a PL/SQL Developer

Question

Can you Please suggest as what should be my next carrer move , I am an Oracle Developer , I worked in Forms and reports and know good PL/SQL and SQL.

Now , I am thinking to learn new technology as there no jobs in PL/SQL alone and Oracle front-end Forms and reports are on the verge of extinction.

The issue is that I have with Java is its HUGE and I need to learn a lot many other technologies as well ( struts , hibernate , spring etc ) in addtion to adv java and Java EE coming. I am think as which technology can give with edge , with PL/SQL and Oracle ...

Thank you.

Answer 1

Clearly Java, because you can use it to write Java Stored Functions in the Oracle RDBMS, so by learning Java, you are also upgrading your already existing Oracle know-how.

Answer 2

I would suggest Java. Since you are already Oracle Programmer;

1. Most of the companies do have requirement that Java Programmers need to know about SQL, PL/SQL(Oracle).
2. Java is now part of Oracle Corporation.

Answer 3

@Oded has the best advice. Check your local job boards. I don't do C# but I would be shocked if they didn't have a myriad of web frameworks like Java has. Just because you choose one language or the other doesn't mean you have to understand all of the frameworks.

If you chose Java, understanding how to use Hibernate (or other ORMs) will be much more important than understanding JEE in general. If you are working for any decent sized company they won't have their Oracle expert burning time writing servlets with business logic when everyone is clamoring for support from the persistence layer.

Answer 4

This is a tough question.

I would lean towards Java because .NET is intended to be tightly integrated with MS-SQL. Not that Oracle et al. cannot be used with .NET, but it's not as straightforward. I also get the general impression C# is used with Oracle far less than Java with Oracle. I can't quantify that unfortunately.

C# is also fairly new, and therefore there is much less work available maintaining/extending C# and Oracle projects than there is doing so for Java and Oracle projects. You might know that COBOL programmers get paid insane amounts to maintain old COBOL code; you can hope the same thing happens with Java/Oracle stuff.

Plus, Oracle now owns Java. There might be good tools coming for Java/Oracle development.