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by MattRogish 4963 days ago
Indeed. I've been a developer for about 13 years. The last 6 and change has been doing Rails and JS app development (I started out doing VC++ apps for Windows). I haven't thought about MS stack at all since about 2002. And I don't recall any presentations at RailsConf this year about .NET. No one in my circles even gives .NET a second thought.

ASP MVC may be pretty rad, but I personally hate C# (Ruby is an amazingly better language) and I don't feel like buying into the Microsoft ecosystem. It's not one that shares my values and culture, and from the outside it seems to be losing momentum and relevance. I'm not aware of many developers who would decide to adopt Rails over .NET due to these "lies" - the choice is first cultural, then technical.

I'm not suggesting that .NET shops are worse places to work (although that has been my personal experience) but there's something about the MS ecosystem that puts .NET shops at risk of turning into overly-stuffy/corporate, aesthetically-unpleasing shops. There are exceptions of course (FogCreek/StackOverflow) but they don't appear to be the norm.
2 comments
dagw 4963 days ago
I personally hate C# (Ruby is an amazingly better language)

Why? I've spent the best part of the last 5 years programming python and JavaScript. Recently however a new project has shown up where I might have to use C# and I'm really excited. From what I've seen and based on the little tests I've done, C# looks like an awesome language. Striking a prefect balance between the being too dynamic and free from and being too rigid. What is it about C# that you "hate"?

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irahul 4963 days ago
> but I personally hate C# (Ruby is an amazingly better language)

I won't argue about Ruby being a better language(I like C# and Ruby and I am not inclined to pick a winner). But what version of C# have you used? If you had a brush with earlier versions of C#, I suggest you http://www.manning.com/skeet2/excerpt_contents.html read the first chapter.

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rpeden 4963 days ago
Indeed. With lambdas, closures, LINQ, and dynamic types when I want them, I find that C# feels sort of like a nice midway point between Java and Ruby.
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