What comes after Alt.NET?

Between contracting with Obtiva and working at a client site where I and my co-developer are the only .NET developers on the site I’ve been focusing on learning tools and languages that are so far out of the Microsoft development stack that they barely register on the typical .NET developer’s radar.

Rake, Ruby, Cucumber, Watir and RSpec are fast becoming my primary tools for testing and development. And I’m doing more personal development in Ruby and Python than ever before. I’m starting to wonder how long it will be before I replace my entire toolbelt and become a Not.NET developer? I’m in no rush, overall the languages and frameworks that are readily available to me as a .NET developer make me quite happy. What doesn’t make me happy are many of the tools provided to support them. Microsoft’s versions of testing and build tools are a mess. Source control seems to be desperately trying to catch up. And, unfortunately, working with a lot of the open source frameworks on .NET don’t feel anywhere as complete and polished as their Ruby originals. Which is unfortunate, as I know that these developer’s are working very hard to bring this functionality to the .NET world.

But, the fact remains, as things become easier on other platforms, they will erode away the reasons for me to remain with the .NET platform. I have no political or ideological reasons to leave. I don’t invest emotions in the tools I use, only in whether they help me do a better job. If I do leave the Microsoft platform will be be for the only reason that counts, because there was something that felt better elsewhere.