depends on what you want developed. =)

Both are equally popular and I think that you must think it in other way. You must think in the way that what you want technology you want to develop for. Its your passion which is important. I am a .NET coder and will anytime advocate .NET but its not in this case because any Java developer will also do it the same way (he/she will promote Java). Its honest opinion that you try both of them a little and then decide.

I personally will prefer Java more.. due to it's a free source and it's executing was much more better as well..

I would say Java, it allows you to write any code that runs on all platforms; while .net only runs on Windows.

definitely Java, .Net in my experience can be very clumsy, to me its overrated.

Well, it depends what kind of apps you want to develop.

Java has the strength of being multi-platform and very easy deployment. For not-so-complex applications it is also very lightweight.

.NET has more capabilities, speed (Java is interpreted instead of compiled, so in complex applications it has a far greater overhead) & in particular is far more secure (when security is an important issue, don't use Java).

[DELETED]

Again, picking a new language depends on what your main aim is - work, play or just for the fun of it. For me, the first language I learnt was Modula-2, this was the main language at that time. But have moved through to Java, Python and now Ruby.

If you are looking for a first language to learn, I would recommend Python... you can never go wrong. Great community, runs on all platform and easier to learn than most other languages.

That's my thoughts
Good luck

While "Java" is a Sun Microsystem trademark, and only Sun can license the name "Java", numerous free software projects exist that are compatible with Sun Java. Most notably, GNU Classpath and GCJ provide a free software class library and a compiler that are partially compatible with the current version of Sun Java.[1] Sun announced in November 13, 2006 that all Java source code, excluding closed-source code for which they do not retain rights, will be released under a modified version of the GPL,[2] and released two fundamental parts of the JRE and JDK: HotSpot and the javac compiler under the GPL

Microsoft's .NET CLI executable environment, and some of the corresponding class library, have been standardized and can be freely implemented without a license. A few standards-compliant free software environments have been implemented, such as the Mono Project and DotGNU. The Mono Project has also implemented many of Microsoft's non-standard libraries by examining Microsoft materials, similar to GNU Classpath and Java.

Nice Question Dear!!
Java is more Popular Programming than Net.

I'm sure you're sick of hearing this - but it depends on what you want to use it for? Are you asking because you want to be marketable? or Are you asking for just something to know?

Java is an actual programming language, while .NET is a framework of languages. .NET is made up of VB.NET, c#, (are the two most popular), COBOL.NET, j#, etc. The list goes on.

If you are looking for work, I would learn the .NET framework, with c# as the main language in the mix. There are plenty of jobs in the professional work place that use .NET, so there would not be a problem finding a job.

I personally use Java, since it's used everywhere in Linux based environment.

If I could choose which one I'd like to use, I'd definitely go with .NET, just for the sake of C#. I have some experience with it and from my point of view, C# is more thought out and evolving than Java. It has great number of new language constructs like delegates etc., that aren't so well handled in Java.

However, .NET means you work with everything Windows based. You have to use Visual Studio, Windows Mobile phone, ISS as web server, Windows on all your development machines ... With Java you have much more freedom since it's platform independent.

There is linux version of .NET which is called Mono. Somebody might tell you how great that is ... But in reality, it's only about 80% features, so you can't basically use it at all, unless you're just playing around with stuff.

The bottom line is, if you want to develop for Windows and only Windows, go with .NET. If you have any thoughts about doing something non-Microsoft, go with Java. Either way you won't make a mistake.

Both are absolutely great platforms to do awesome applications. It depends on the type of application that you are developing and the audience you are developing for. For general purpose application on Windows platform, I would definitely go with .NET. However, for portability and industrial software that may probably never run on Windows, I would go with Java.