Should we trust .NET? (was Re: PHP vs. Python/comp.lang.php?)

[Ken Seehof]

> > I see "a few socially conscious businesses" should use software from THE
> > socially conscious business of the World ;)

Stephen Cox wrote:
> Except for the webserver, they do. MySQL as the backend database, ASP and
> PHP are the scripting langs. I'm learning Python so I can use ZOPE more.
> True, I think .NET is cool - but I'll only use it if MS keeps it promise
and
> ports it too Linux and such.

Odds of MS keeping any promises of this kind: 0.027%

.NET will be cool until everyone starts using it as an industry standard.
At
that precise moment, MS will introduce various incompatibilities that will
maximize problems for their competitors.  In the mean time, they will
continue
to promote .NET as the standard for open archetecture development.  Of
course, if MS hadn't created .NET, somebody in the open source community
would have, and MS would have lost a great deal of control over the market.
They know this, and that is why they occupied the nitch with .NET.

It has never been in MS's best interest to be compatible with the rest of
the
computing world.

- Ken