Extremely well-put. As I read the sentence containing your friend's characterization of Java folks vs. .NET folks, a response started forming in my mind. When I read the next paragraph, what I saw was basically my own proto-response fully-formed and expressed very nicely.

I agree. The Java world is often more vocal because they're so much more involved and active in the communities that surround the choices they make. I think that's a great thing overall--do you really feel like you're a part of something special in the .NET world? It's unfortunate, though, that we see unruly folks attacking the hard efforts of others (e.g on TSS or wherever), or attempting to spread FUD that is not true or skewed (whatever their motivations: financial, ego, etc.). From my perspective, seeing that, I'm not promoting anything at that point, I'm simply combatting FUD targeting stuff I believe in with facts. Now obviously, as a framework developer, my motivation to get involved comes more from the fact people might be dissing stuff I wrote, or stuff I stand to make a living off of. But even from a user's point of view: when you get experience with something, and you see the value in it, and you see others saying stuff that's not true in a effort to promote their own stuff or because of some overblown ego, it's hard to stay silent. Oh well, who said business wasn't tough. :-) In any case, it's good to know professionalism nearly always wins out in the long term. Cheers, Keith

Keith, extremely well put. I tend to do the same. I can't just sit there silently letting false statements rage on. Amazingly, the reactions you then often get is that *you* are the one bashing on *them*!!

Plus, its a double-edged sword. There are a lot of people who feel the need to tear down another technology to build up their own; by the same token, there are a lot of people who feel threatened by somebody merely pointing out positive things about other technologies. I often wonder how folks can get so personally, emotionally wrapped up in a technology (unless they wrote it themselves, like the two of you). After all, aren't these things all tools to accomplish a goal? Isn't the goal more important than the tool? And, just to follow up on something Keith said, there are, in fact, plenty of people who feel they are part of something special with .NET. Microsoft exerts a strong pull on people, and the teams they assemble to lead the glamour products are every bit the rock star that some of the public figures on the Java side are. And, frankly, most of the "feeling special" that people have is akin to feeling included in the cool kids' clique, which can happen no matter what the technology is.

Agreed, the end is way more important than the tool. A tool is only a means to an end. The people really going places live by that motto. Why do you think *I* have a business degree? :-) Interesting discussion. Cheers, Keith

The problem is my browser...

But I'm not sure why.

Not really new...

Not really new.

I use Firefox in Ubuntu :(

Thanks for taking the time to do it!

Thanks for taking the time to do it.