[SWLUG] Wow, seen this on Slashdot?

[peter]

Adam Rykala wrote:

> My main argument is that MS really have no business commenting on 
> security, and by throwing that comment in with security blows apart 
> any credibility they have for development whatsoever.
>
> I don't bother with graphical development, and apart from the Fortran 
> stuff I do ... the last programming I did was almost a decade ago. 
> Hence why I didn't say too much. That said tho, I don't own a Windows 
> box at all here and really have no incentive too, so perhaps that 
> coulors my feelings ;-)
>
> Hence I can't argue with "Couple that with Visual Studio and you have 
> a combination capable of creating secure, n-Tier, distributed 
> applications with a facility that I haven't yet found with any Open 
> Source product." apart from the fact that you're running them on an 
> intrinsically insecure platform ....
>
Again, Adam, I'm mainly happy with what you say.  However, if Linux is 
to achieve a significant overall market penetration in all sectors, it 
has to be able to offer a platform for developers that is pleasant and 
productive to use - in my opinion at any rate.  So far, I have not seen 
this: but I don't know everything and it's quite possible I've missed 
something. 

I have great hopes for mono.  If monodevelop morphs into a real 
competitor for VS, then I'll never use Windows again (unless forced to 
by my employer, of course).  Sadly, however, this is not currently the 
case.  What can be done, though - and I know of some people who are 
doing this - is to write code in VS and then install the resulting apps 
under mono.  I haven't yet tried it myself, so I don't know how easy it 
is in fact.

I'd even be happy to use J2EE if it was as easy to install and 
administer as the .NET framework.

As to your last comment, bear in mind that you can run your .NET 
applications on Linux if you want to - and if you take a little care in 
making your code portable.  The exact amount of care that might be 
necessary is one of the things I'll be looking into later this year.

Cheers

Peter