I sort put eclipse aside because it lacked a GUI builder. But I'm starting to see things a little different. Eclipse was built using SWT and JFace. It runs very nicely but I'm still holding out for a swing solution because it has more support. I'm still learning how it all works but I know that there is a switch that can change the look and feel of swing to match the under lying OS. So I figured I setup a switch statement to set look and feel to windows, Linux or Mac OSX and default to Metal as required by the OS. I really want the look and feel to match the OS without me doing to much - like I don't really want to add Lib's or have different exe's for each OS.

I have been reading an O'Reilly book "Head First Java" and I love it. The sytle is so different from other programming books that I have read. There are pictures, Q&A at the end of every chapter and sometimes during section within a chapter. You'll have to check it out.

I have a MSDN subscription so I have C# along with VS.NET. I'm guessing but I doubt Mono is ready for anything at this point. With Novell buying Ximian I'll bet something will be ready late next year. But will it be cross platform? And from what I can see C# is not much different that Java. But watch out M$ might just sue Ximian/Novell over some sort of license violation in Mono. If Mono gets to big and is able to cross platforms - watch out. But C# is just as much work as Java! If your thinking of staying with a M$ only solution then I guess C# would be the best solution (never really liked VB).

John