"Microsoft only is a very limited painful yet guaranteed option, ALT option is the total amazement and innovation but can simply disappear in a moment." (Gurustop)

 

Alt.Net is yet another moniker for some sort of alternative lifestyle to .Net development. I can understand the desire to differentiate but I found these type of slogan driven movement quite empty other than probably selling new conference themes or generating new thought leaders.

 

I don't think simply dividing technologies based on its source or 'coolness' as a helpful exercise. A crappy software does not become "cool" or "innovative" simply because it is slapped into some sort of "open source" or "alt.net" label. Nor any "Microsoft approved" technology can be guaranteed or viewed as thoroughly stable. I think these labels are mostly used to smack other people on online debates. Nobody give a damn about what kind of technology powers their software. Users either love it or hate it. That's the bottom line.

 

There are software that have been maintained using un-cool technology that powers the world. Your in-flight software is not written in the latest C# 3.0 or tested using xUnit latest iteration. Most of ecommerce or CMS or online portals are written in un-cool technologies such as PHP that have been behind the buzzword curve or technology movement. Lord knows Dave Winer single handedly pioneered weblogs, RSS or OPML using an outdated custom language in a cool object database without source code revision tool.

 

Process and technology are important, but  resulting product is paramount. We should put more focus on the end product of our technology development and make judgement of that. Why not start a "cool software" movement or "great products that change the world" slogan.