“…a 7 project Visual Studio solution and a Fowleresque storage-agnostic domain model for your 10-page ASP.NET website, and get some actual work done instead.”

That is one of the things that has made me look at ROR, I actually got to help implement a Rails project at work and I have to say there have been less problems and I have been able to get changes and fixes done much faster than I have been in C#.

I think .NET is great for some stuff but their web applications leave me feeling like I am need to beat my head against a wall while hopping on one foot to do a simple web application.

I definitely am starting to look much harder at alternatives to MS , mainly cause I am fed up with the way they do web applications. For a code library, or a windows app I think .NET is pretty good, but for a web application…not so much.

IMHO the first step on the road to enlightenment is to stop using Enterprise Library, a 7 project Visual Studio solution and a Fowleresque storage-agnostic domain model for your 10-page ASP.NET website, and get some actual work done instead.

Speaking of religion, Rubyists would be well-served to ease up a little bit on the fanboyism. Is it just me, or are .NET fanboys (and girls!) few and far between? Sure, I like .NET, but it’s a tool to me, and not a following. I’m interested in learning Ruby and RoR, but I hesitate because it seems a little too trendy. We still don’t know the long-term implications of maintaining and scaling large Ruby applications, and as such I can’t see adopting it for my “day job” work. I think that’s what will keep me with .NET for awhile: it’s a known value. I’m definitely interested in learning new things, but at the same time, just because they’re new, doesn’t make them *better*. Rather than *switching* technologies, I think of it as learning and absorbing ideas, and applying them to the tools I already have.

But yeah, WebForms is bad. Really, really, really bad.

And Alex, I’m calling FUD on your comment that there are “sub-frameworks” that are “shitty and buggy”. I also think that overall, the design of the BCL is very good, certainly better than its equivalent in Java, and miles past the hodgepodge that I used to use in C++. In particular, I’ve done some significant work with SRE and, like Ayende said, it has annoying limitations, but it works as it should. Also, Microsoft uses it. Go look at the dependency injection container that drives CodePlex (in ObjectBuilder’s repository). They’ve got significant AOP functionality that’s written using SRE. The bottom line is that dynamic IL emitting is only useful in edge cases, and so there’s no reason to train support staff to help with it.

I for one am excited about .NET… C# 3.0 looks great, and Microsoft seems to be making moves to start embracing open source, at least in the development community. Things could get really interesting, really fast.

-James

It’s ALT.NETish in three ways —

1. It’s an alternative IDE to VS.NET.
2. An alternative desktop development framework in our VCL.NET framework
3. We provide a native RAD development studio for Windows in Delphi and C++Builder.

I suppose that we qualify with #1 alone — an alternative IDE to develop .Net applications. Delphi and CodeGear RAD Studio (To be released soon for .Net 2.0) offers an alternate way to develop for .Net

With #2, we provide a powerful alternative to WInforms, and a migration path from native to .Net and back.

With #3, providing RAD native development is the ultimate “ALT” to .Net itself — using native code instead of managed code.

And by the way, you get all three of those “ALTs” in one package with RAD Studio.

Check us out at http://www.codegear.com

A (lame) analogy can be ‘Alternative rock’: it’s still rock, so for what is it the alternative? Unclear.

Will ALT.NET become NOT.NET ? No of course not. If it would have been, people would have moved to Java years ago, as the stuff people are using on .NET are available on Java for years already and are in much more mature state than on .NET. Ruby? As a language: sure. RoR, I’m not convinced.

Another aspect is that something which is ‘Alternative’ is the ‘mainstream’ for the people IN that alternative stream. So in a while it will become common for these people, and something ‘new’ will look like something potentially ‘better’, as when you’re using something for some time you will learn the downsides and quirks of it.

And the process repeats itself.

I’ve programmed software in at least 15 different computer languages in the last 20 years on at least 10 different platforms. There’s one thing I’ve learned which will save your day: use the platform / language which you know like the back of your hand. Because that will offer you the ability to finish your project. If you keep on switching platforms, you will start over from scratch: you might know how to apply a new EBNF syntaxis of the new language and some classes / functions in the libraries available look familiar, but you will have to start over and learn everything again.

That’s why I don’t believe people will switch soon to Ruby on its own interpreter: they have to start over again and drop the knowledge they’ve learned on .NET in the last couple of years.

Don’t kid yourself with a sticker that you’re so alternative. You’re not. You just decided to pick a different subset of tools than some other group. Well, congratulations , but it’s not an achievement at all nor a lifestyle or a movement.

A lot of the issues we’re talking about aren’t necessarily exclusive to the .NET community it’s just where I happen to be most of the time. I strongly believe we need to identify ourselves as a Community of Developer instead of Microsoft Fanboys, Agilists, Rubyists, Brand Loyalists, Whigs, Tories, etc.

I hope you’re able to make it to the ALT.NET Conference to help us work through some of these issues!

How do you figure? I use Rhino Mocks. I use NHibernate. These are built on . . . the .Net platform. If anything else, I’m investing myself MORE heavily in .Net by learning frameworks that increase my dependence on the platform. .Net OSS projects are . . . .Net. I don’t understand how using 3rd party .Net libraries and tools pull you away from Microsoft.

I, for one, am always looking for better ways to do things, but I have no interest in Rails at this point. It really sucks for back-end and smart client development. I mean, REALLY sucks! <tongue in cheek/>

-James