About the Site

This site was born from the desire to broaden my development horizons.

I have programmed in a number of languages over the last few decades but recently I  seem to have been caught in the Dark Side that is the Microsoft .NET Framework. There is no doubt that it is a fantastically powerful platform to program in but in this day and age it is not wise to specialise in a single technology.

With that in mind I have made a New Years Resolution that I may in fact keep beyond February: I will learn some non-Microsoft languages/technologies and apply them to some upcoming, real world projects.

To kick this off I will be revisiting Linux as a desktop/server replacement. I had used Red Hat in the past but could never put enough time into getting to grips with it. The fact is that companies of all sizes are looking to Linux for Server and Desktop operating systems and it’s shortsighted of me not to get up to speed.

I have friends that want websites/forums setting up and while I would normally opt for DotNetNuke I’ll have a look at frameworks like Jooma, Drupal and phpBB. Hosting for these is considerably cheaper than for the Windows based offerings that are required by DNN.

I’ll also be looking to compare my .NET language of choice, ASP.NET using C#, with an Open Source alternative – probably Python and PHP combined.

I will be publishing my experiences in the form of blogs mainly because if I don’t then I will probably forget what I have learnt after a few months and have to learn it all again – call this an “aide memior” if you like. If the content of the site proves useful to others then all the better.

Me on StackOverflow [proably the best programming Q&A site on the web.