A comparison of J2EE and .NET as platforms for teaching Web services

.NET and J2EE are the two leading technologies in enterprise-level application development. They are also the platforms of choice for developing Web services. We compare the two platforms using parameters such as features present in each platform, tools and resources offered by the two and compatibility with the rest of the curriculum. .NET offers integrated, native support for various phases of Web services development, while the Java platform achieves this with several new libraries. We compare the Web-services development process in IBM's Websphere (for J2EE) and Microsoft's visual studio .NET and find them remarkably similar. Arguments in favor of J2EE are platform independence, multiple vendor support, the popularity of Java in universities, and a larger number of tools and resources from which to choose. Points favoring .NET include support for multiple languages, and integrated (rather than add-on) support for Web services. The disadvantage of single-vendor support in .NET must be weighed against J2EE's single-language support.