With C#, you will have to use Visual Studio, which is a horrific IDE. Also Eclipse > Netbeans (hehe lets not start this war…;))
No, it is not mandatory, you can use SharpDevelop, a free open source IDE for C# and VB.NET:
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/
Look ra4king! you start another IDE war >:(
;D
Actually Visual Studio is not that bad… as soon as you install Intellij Resharper 
I didn’t use Visual Studio a lot but It’s been the only thing that I missed from C# World. I don’t know any free Java IDE that has code intelligence and type-aware code completion as great as Visual Studio… I’d love to be corrected on that there is free Java IDE that has type-aware code completion. However, NetBeans is also great for Java.
Also I really like the look of Windows 8 Metro, and I’d love to build something with it. That is another reason I would pick C# over Java (although JavaScript might be a better choice since you could also port it to work on the web).
What’s “type-aware code completion”? And interesting first post, you must have been roaming and my post made you want to reply 
Visual Studio’s C# editor gives code completion choices as you type anything, including letters, if I’m not mistaken. JDT only offers suggestions when you type ‘.’ in code out-of-the-box. Is this what you’re referring to?
I haven’t used Visual Studio in ages, but I remember being enamored with it until I learned from experience just how smart Eclipse really was. The item above aside, Eclipse was (is?) all-around much more helpful IMO. Code completion including parameter types/documentation for members, much better refactoring support, all kinds of fun shortcuts (Ctrl+O, Ctrl+T), etc. Just sit down with someone who uses Eclipse day-in and day-out, you’ll be amazed at how smart it really is.* 
- My experience is the JDT Java support only. My understanding is support for other languages isn’t as robust.
Yeah I have a lot of experience with Eclipse and Visual Studio, I know what you are talking about but the same feature is available in Eclipse if you hit Ctrl+Space. I prefer Eclipse’s way because I remember being annoyed by Visual Studio’s intellisense popping up every single damn second with every single damn letter
Visual Studio is really quite good. I wish I had it’s debugging features in Eclipse.
Yes, that’s what I referred to. Eclipse’s feature with Ctrl + Space is also good. And I thought I had the right to post on this topic as a newbie, seems I got wrong.
[quote=“feelingtheblanks,post:51,topic:37937”]
Are you being touchy or just playing hard to get?
You’ve got to be careful saying that, because Visual Studio behaves very, very differently depending on the language it’s being used for. Intellisense/autocomplete for example, is terrible for C++, but reasonably good for C# (although IMHO both Netbeans and Eclipse’s Java intellisense run rings around VS’s C# intellisense, which I believe to be a fair comparison).
IIRC, both Eclipse and VS can be configured to either give you autocomplete as you type or on a ctrl+space. But I believe they’re usually set up to different defaults.
Just to make things even more vague, most people who say ‘Visual Studio’s auto complete’ are actually using Visual Assist. Which is widely thought to be the only way to make VS C++ actually usable, and non-free.
Debugging too. VS’s C++ debugger is great, but the C# debugger is much less feature complete and more on a par with Eclipse’s IMHO.
I believe this awkward situation accounts for 99% of arguments about which of the IDEs are better. :-\
[quote=“theagentd,post:52,topic:37937”]
Not at all, I suppose. I haven’t been into forums earlier, i don’t know how things work here, so I just wanted to say my opinion, not like trolling or sth. Sorry if I looked like that but I’m not
[quote=“feelingtheblanks,post:54,topic:37937”]
Aye, I wasn’t trying to belittle your opinion or anything, just stating my own. Sorry bout that.
I really should try out the latest Visual Studio, it’s surely improved quite a bit since I last “seriously” used it (VS2005 maybe?).
Out of curiosity, what debugging features does it have that Eclipse is lacking? I would have thought Eclipse would have been very comparable feature-wise to VS, at least for C#/managed code languages. Especially with Eclipse’s more rapid release cycle.
Off the top of my head (having not really done much Java for a little while), Eclipse lacks things like ‘set next statement’ and also isn’t so quick to inspect items as you hover over them… tbh I find them both much of a muchness for debugging.
C# is IMHO a nicer language: properties, operator overload and delegates were already mentioned, also LINQ, some handy parallel stuff… I wouldn’t want to write C# without ReSharper though (mostly because it does stuff similar to what Eclipse, Netbeans etc do for free), and that means not only paying for r# but also getting VS Pro as Express doesn’t support extensions IIRC.
Sorry to say it, but in practice in terms of getting a game out there, C# seems better… Mono effectively allows you to reach desktop platforms similarly to Java, but also iOS which is not to be sniffed at. I’d like to know what the performance of Monotouch / droid is really like though, since I’ll be starting to prototype some iOS stuff soon and it looks like an appealing approach, but Monotouch is another chunk of money to lay down so it would be a shame if that was wasted…
Must admit, the culture around C# does feel rather less free…
XNA is mostly a nice API, though I do have some reservations.
You’ve been rambling about IDEs, which one is better and so on, so another question surfaced in my tiny mind.
Can you write java code withOUT an IDE? Using only notepad++, or some equivalent software for linux / mac?
(personally, I can’t. I use Eclipse, and I’m happy with it)
I occasionally write trivial java code in emacs or kate, yes. Emphasis on trivial, it’s just too annoying otherwise.
Yes, trivially.
However Java is one of the few languages where I prefer a full IDE (although with a few minor changes to Visual Studio, I’d happily use that for JavaScript).