I think it depends greatly on whether you plan to program, or to be a programmer. Some folks believe that programming is just a skill to be taught, much like, say, learning Excel or Powerpoint. You either have that skill, or you do not. It is a means to an end. If this is the case for you, then any of the .NET family of languages will probably be fine - lots of visual tools, lots of documentation and certification programs to prove you have that skill. After all, what's more important - actually knowing it, or simply having a piece of paper that says you do? Lots of places looking to hire those skills.

Others, and I count myself among this second category, believe that being a programmer is something you're born to, and if you've got the passion for it, then you will seek it out whether somebody's paying you a salary or not. If that is the case then you will want to wrap yourself in the tools that allow you to best express yourself, regardless of their marketability. Maybe for you that's Java - I did just under 10 years in Java myself, and when it's not trying to be an "enterprise platform" it is a very nice language. But there are many, many languages to choose from besides these two. Perhaps you want to take a crack at writing iPhone applications. In that case you'll need Objective C. But if you prefer Android (the Google phone), I believe that one can be coded in Java.

If you made me pick between your two choices alone, I would take Java in a heartbeat. The "visual" style of programming to me always lacked something, like all you were doing was stitching pieces of other people's code together. I much prefer to write code. As I said, I enjoy it. I don't consider the code writing to be a chore that stands between me and the solution, I consider my job to be solving the problem by writing code.

If you're up for something new, check out Ruby on Rails, or Python, or Haskell or maybe Clojure.

[ Now, see, if your reaction to that last line was "Just tell me which language will help me get a job", then you know the answer to my opening question. :) ]
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First, you asked which we prefer not which would we recommend to someone who was learning programming (which is what people seem to be assuming). What is your background? Have you coded in other languages? Why are you asking this question?

Just to answer your question, I was more productive in VB.NET, but there is a huge stigma associated with it, so overall I was happier when I was coding in Java. That is, to pick between the two. Non-technical people will assume you are a 'beginner' programmer and technical people (that aren't VB.NET programmers) will assume you do not understand object oriented programming if you tell them you write VB.NET code. Of course, this is absolutely not true but its what people generally think.

Neither one would be on the top of the list. C# would be up there, higher than Java because I think the libraries and tools are a bit more productive and the code generally runs faster. (Someone will probably dispute all of that but that's ok.) Python or IronPython is up there, because the language is much more streamlined. F# is up there, because its just frigging cool. ActionScript 3 is up there, because its incredibly useful since it runs in 95+% of the browsers out there.

As far as cross-platform goes, Mono is the open source version of C#, which also runs IronPython. Mono runs on Linux and other non-Windows platforms.

I actually mostly code in PHP and JavaScript right now (not really by preference to be honest). By the way, both of those are object oriented languages, although classes in JavaScript are a little weird.

Don't be confused by the name Visual Basic. Its not a visual programming language. It does have form builders and other designers but you get that with Java too.

Also, its not really so basic as the name would indicate. Every single library and every single (normally used) piece of functionality available in C# is available to you in Visual Basic. The exceptions are things like unsafe code blocks which you probably won't miss. VB.NET doesn't usually require things like type casting which makes it easier to use than C# or Java. Although you do need to understand object oriented programming and an awful lot of other things to be a good VB.NET programmer.

One more thing. The newer 3.5 (or 4.0 soon) .NET libraries and tools can be pretty different from the old ones. Make sure you don't waste your time on .NET 1.1 or 2.0. Also, at least take a look at Java 7 before you settle on Java 6 and don't get into Java 5.

And one more one more thing. Object-oriented isn't the be-all and end-all of programming paradigms. Many languages, like F#, are multiparadigm. Some other programming paradigms are functional, aspect-oriented, flow-based, process oriented, etc. See source.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_paradigm

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