Maybe I should go ….to PHP ?
(… I mean just go, not “go down” or “go up” or “go away from .NET” – read next why, really!)

Projects like Simple Cloud API (http://simplecloud.org) in PHP, together with Zend Framework and many other PHP related stuff  sometimes KILLS me, .NET developer / architect!

Why, WHY we do not have something like Simple Cloud API in .NET??? Or at least it’s not well known! Is it so hard to build and promote it ?? NO! Why it takes whole a lot of time to introduce ASP.NET MVC, if we do it so many years in Java or PHP !? Great .NET framework, tons of projects, but so limited amount of “innovative” open source projects in .NET!

Take a look, most of famous .NET open source projects go in same versions or even few versions behind if compare to corresponding projects from Java (see Lucene.NET for example), but do not introduce really “innovations” in the software programming! Some projects do not even exists in .NET space like Solr (i.e. you should use Java VM to run it)! Some projects like ASP.NET MVC comes much later other MVC frameworks in Ruby (RoR), Python (Django) or even PHP (Zend Framework)… And Microsoft last time spend whole a lot of effort to bring Java  / PHP into Azure… instead of increase sponsorship for example innovative OSS projects in .NET and by this push developers to go for .NET from other frameworks!

Should somebody build library like SimpleCloud in .NET ASAP!? YES! (please don’t tell me that I should build it ) Why?

Too many companies really need same thing to be able to abstract away Windows Azure or any other Cloud specific solution using some open source  libraries (like SimpleCloud in PHP) and made solution portable across Clouds, before they spend $$$ and stuck with one Cloud supplier forever See my post about this!
And too many developers really expect .NET platform to be more innovative !!!

P.S. sometimes innovations can waste your time / effort, if parent company stop support it – see my post about Silverlight

Hi! It’s good news today for a lot of java, ruby and groovy developers – new version “Maia” (officially v9) was just released by JetBrains with a lot of new features (including faster environment, extensive Java 6 support, build-in Google App Engine and Grails projects support etc) – feel read full “What’s new” list.

There exists also not so good news – this time for PHP developers – support of PHP was removed from release of free (“community”) version of IDEA, so developers can stick with other completely free IDEs this time – for example NetBeans comes to my mind this time… as alternative… but after Oracle buy Sun, I not sure it is right choice… but this is “idea” for another post…)

Actually personally I don’t understand why “Community” version does not support PHP, Javascript, Python or Ruby as this languages are used by a lot (if not most) of “open source” developers that for some reasons does not feet into JetBrains licensing of commercial version of IntelliJ IDEA for open source projects. I think “vice versa” if compare to JetBrains – Commercial version must have extended support for Java development, while Community edition must support MORE other open source frameworks / languages, like Ruby, Python or PHP etc. Sure it’s only my “personal” opinion, but I think most of developers will agree with me – people that use IDEA for Java development (usually in enterprises) can (and will!) simply BUY commercial licenses, while a lot of potential IntelliJ users actually want to use it for small open source projects in non-Java languages stack and want to get IDE for FREE!

But totally – all new features show that JetBrains go in right direction – support for most “progressive” and “latest” technologies in IDEA (even if it is available only commercially )

Keep it going, JetBrains!