[oclug] LAMP vs MS Solutions for Small Business

[Rod Giffin]

On Fri, February 18, 2005 11:11, Ian Wormsbecker said:
> This discussion has been very interesting so far. I am curious about
> another angle of all of this. Has anyone explored similar alternatives
> to the below stated requirements. I am mostly curious about C# and
> mod_mono. This seems like a possible route for many people to go in the
> future as it would (theoretically from what I understand) allow a
> developer to develop on win / linux, and then deploy on linux as they
> see fit.

That's true, but you can already do that with J2EE right now.

> Has anyone experimented with C# and mod_mono on linux. I have heard of
> many people using postgresql or firebird to replace their MS SQL server
> deployments; has anyone done the same with their IIS and ASP deployments?

I've tried it.  It works to a point.  Microsoft based projects tend to
lean very heavily on libraries installed in the operating system, and
often these libraries are non-existant in Mono on Linux in any form. 
Microsoft has no qualms about getting Visual Studio developers to operate
that way, making calls to specific Microsoft libraries... and that's fine.
 You end up with a software package that works very well on a Microsoft
platform.

Java developers on the other hand, usually rely on installed JAR files in
the Java path, rather than OS specific libraries.  Their software tends to
be far more portable.  The benefit is that J2EE allows you to develop for
multiple OS platforms, to the point where the OS of the deployment target,
and even it's architecture is transparent to the developer.  Usually, you
simply don't care.

Rod.