Friday, September 28, 2007
Wrong. Raymond Lewallen
nails it here, and there is some good debate in the comments.
I think
Joe Ocampo makes a great point in the comments about Java and Ruby being largely owned by the community, whereas .Net is of course owned and controlled by Microsoft. This can and does result in many developers waiting for MS to tell them which way to go next. Alt.Net is about establishing a stronger, more diverse, and more vocal community around .Net and discussing what is most important to developers in the real world. We can work with Microsoft to help them make better tools for developers. It is also about not being afraid to find or build our own tools where we think the Microsoft platform is lacking (and no one expects MS to be able to please everyone all the time!).
Only a couple days after my initial post about
starting a Philly ALT.NET user group, we've broken the 20 member mark in our
Yahoo Group! This
reference on Scott Bellware's blog definitely helped. Even
Brian Button is getting the fever - a little birdy (aka watching
Steve Eichert's Twitter feed as he sits next to me at
Ruby East) told me that he is thinking about starting an ALT.NET group in St. Louis.
Dave Laribee, the creator of the term "ALT.NET," was nice enough to contact me and offer to help out, and says he'll try to make it down to some meetings. So, we are rolling along toward scheduling our first meeting! Please email me or comment here if you have any interest in helping out with finding a venue, presenting, or sponsoring (food, venue, etc). I will surely post about the first meeting here, but why not join our
mailing list?
P.S. You can join directly via email by emailing:
phillyaltnet-subscribe [at] yahoogroups dot com
UPDATE: Momentum is really building... Utah's starting an
ALT.NET group (they even borrowed our content, which is flattering - or maybe they just haven't gotten around to writing anything better yet!).
PhatBoyG is shouting out to us, too...