New project coming up...stay with Python, or go with a dot net language??? Your thoughts please!

[Lasse Vågsæther Karlsen]

While Microsoft and other big software vendors might have a roadmap
that ties you very tightly in with their budget, and also changes that
roadmap from time to time which breaks your current software, a lot of
open source projects have no roadmap at all.

This means that a .x.y.2 upgrade might very well kill your software in
the same way a 6-7 upgrade with VB might. The biggest reason for this,
as far as I can tell, is that open source projects are very much built
to integrate with other projects, simply because the source is
available and it's thus far easier to integrate them, but that also
means that unless you upgrade two integrated projects at the same time,
you risk an upgrade in one breaking the other.

As an example, Komodo from ActiveState has serious problems (on my 4
computers) debugging functions with Python 2.4.2. Right now I don't
know if Python 2.4.2 fixed a bug Komodo depended on or if 2.4.2
introduced a bug breaking Komodo, or if my computer is some freaky
thing that just refuses to behave. I'm reinstalling my office computer
these days so I'll see what happens then, but until that's done, I've
had to go back to 2.4.1 in order to debug properly.

With a 6.0 to 7.0 upgrade for a project, I expect problems. Even
Microsoft came out and said this new release will definitely break your
software projects. The whole point of an upgrade is that something that
did X before, does Y now, something different. Preferrably Y = X+1, but
sometimes it's radically different.

I think a main point in a lot of projects is that unless you have to
upgrade, don't. That way you can avoid a lot of problems by default.

Now, as for OP, the only way to easily get full support for all the new
Microsoft technology when it comes out will probably be to upgrade to
the latest and the greatest of the Microsoft tools. I bet the Python
community will react quicker than you can turn your head, but the tools
will still not be the same as Microsoft. Does it mean they won't be as
good ? No, it means they will be different. It means that you probably
can't follow Microsoft help when dealing with Python modules.

And that, is exactly as it should be.