ALT.NET
Scott Bellware has post entitled “On Being the NHibernate Mafia.” The term “NHibernate Mafia” is amusing to say the least.
In the post Scott rejects the term and gets at the ethos he, I, and lots of others are trying to evangelize and bring to the .NET community: It’s not the tools, it’s the solution. For me it’s often the maintainability of the solution. How easy can I evolve/change the solution? I’ll tell you what, I’m sick and tired of dealing with legacy code.
If there has to be a label, I’ll propose a new one: ALT.NET
What does it mean to be to be ALT.NET? In short it signifies:
- You’re the type of developer who uses what works while keeping an eye out for a better way.
- You reach outside the mainstream to adopt the best of any community: Open Source, Agile, Java, Ruby, etc.
- You’re not content with the status quo. Things can always be better expressed, more elegant and simple, more mutable, higher quality, etc.
- You know tools are great, but they only take you so far. It’s the principles and knowledge that really matter. The best tools are those that embed the knowledge and encourage the principles (e.g. Resharper.)
When tools, practices, or methods become mainstream it’s time to get contrarian; time to look for new ways of doing things; time to shake it up. The minute Entity Framework surpasses NHibernate, I mean the very instant it empowers me to better express my intent, so long NHibernate. It’s been real, it’s been nice, but I’m on to the better thing. Of course it’s not as black-and-white as all that. It’s up to us to stay aware, educated, and to give our input. It’s not a game of wait-evaluate-wait-evaluate, it’s a matter of contribution.
Sidebar: You know I wouldn’t call the meeting between the Agile folk and Microsoft’s ADO.NET team the “Entity Framework Smackdown.” It was a “Mind Meld” and a healthy one at that. There was a lot of passion going on, to be sure, but folks were listening to each other all around.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “there are always two parties; the establishment and the movement.” If you’re ALT.NET, you’re in the movement. You’re shaking out the innovation. When the movement fails, stalls, or needs improving you’re there starting/finding/supporting that next leap forward.
Scott Bellware wrote:
Indeed! ALT.NET it is, then.
Posted on 10-Apr-07 at 1:43 am | Permalink
Christopher Bennage wrote:
It’s got a ring to it.
Posted on 10-Apr-07 at 9:45 am | Permalink
Becoming more ALT.NET « The Web Gambit wrote:
[…] more ALT.NET Dave Laribee had a great post where he has coined a new term for .NET Developers called ALT.NET. An ALT.NET developer is always […]
Posted on 10-Apr-07 at 9:59 am | Permalink
Nico wrote:
Please someone in Argentina read this article!!!
I’m very frustrated working in the establishment. Really needing some movement.
Translated to spanish in http://agilizando.tumblr.com/post/764063
Posted on 10-Apr-07 at 10:13 am | Permalink
Mike Mahon wrote:
Where can I be baptized in ALT.NET?
Also, I really am intrigued by the, and I say this with some degree of reverence, “minute entity framework”. That phrase kinda makes me tingle.
Posted on 12-Apr-07 at 12:13 am | Permalink
Evan wrote:
@Mike Mahon
If you want the full-body immersion, and not just the sprinkling on the head, watch out for JP’s bootcamps. I’ll be heading out to the next one (hopefully).
http://www.jpboodhoo.com/blog/
Posted on 12-Apr-07 at 2:59 am | Permalink
Dave wrote:
JP is ALT.NET to be sure and, having seen him in action, I’d say you’d be hard pressed to find a better coach. Note that his blog is now at codebetter. Check it. It’s a good place for him; the codebetter crew rocks it ALT style.
Above and beyond that ALT.NET is an Attitude. Do a lot of reading, playing with tools, get out there in the community, dogfood your theories, join the conversation, start a blog, find some mentors… Yeah, acquire the Knowledge and develop the Skills, but start with the Attitude.
Posted on 12-Apr-07 at 9:07 am | Permalink
ALT.NET: la solución es lo importante — codeout wrote:
[…] un interesante post, Dave Laribee establece un nuevo termino ALT.NET para desarrolladores .NET. Un desarrollador […]
Posted on 16-Apr-07 at 2:24 pm | Permalink
Nick Parker wrote:
Absolutely right on David!
Posted on 17-Apr-07 at 9:49 pm | Permalink
A'braham Barakhyahu wrote:
Good gravy, there are others. I tried to explain to some other M$ developers, but couldn’t put it into words like you did. ALT.NET is how I feel. M$ provides a tool ( a good one) that I use to build soloutions in, but I don’t revolve around M$ and whatever they spit out. I look for good development. Fantastic post. I think you just got a new subscriber.
Posted on 21-Apr-07 at 7:00 pm | Permalink
Jay R. Wren - lazy dawg evarlast » Archive » Expanding on ALT.NET wrote:
[…] Dave Laribee started it. […]
Posted on 01-May-07 at 12:58 am | Permalink
Ayende @ Rahien wrote:
ALT.Net: It is not us vs. them……
ALT.Net: It is not us vs. them……
Posted on 01-May-07 at 4:12 pm | Permalink
Jon Galloway wrote:
Are you ALT.NET?…
David Laribee coined a term which summarizes a movement in the .NET community - ALT.NET: What does it…
Posted on 02-May-07 at 7:06 am | Permalink
the ‘bee log / Corduroy wrote:
[…] ALT.NET […]
Posted on 05-May-07 at 6:51 pm | Permalink
I am an ALT.NET Developer « Lee Kelleher wrote:
[…] » I am an ALT.NET Developer I am an ALT.NET Developer. (more here) » « 10:06 10/05/07 · permalink · linklog, code, […]
Posted on 10-May-07 at 4:06 am | Permalink
ALT.NET is not about tools « The Web Gambit wrote:
[…] amazing how many people mistook the context of my original response to Dave Laribee’s ALT.NET post. It started with a few blogs and I tried addressing it via commenting on those posts but […]
Posted on 13-May-07 at 12:41 am | Permalink
The Web Gambit wrote:
Becoming more ALT.NET…
Dave Laribee had a great post where he has coined a new term for .NET Developers called ALT.NET . An…
Posted on 19-May-07 at 3:22 pm | Permalink
The Web Gambit wrote:
ALT.NET is not about tools…
I still find it amazing how many people mistook the context of my original response to Dave Laribee’s…
Posted on 19-May-07 at 3:23 pm | Permalink
Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen wrote:
Is Microsoft losing the Alpha Geeks?…
…
Posted on 20-May-07 at 9:39 pm | Permalink
you've been HAACKED wrote:
Is Web Development The Only Development That Matters?…
Is Web Development The Only Development That Matters?…
Posted on 21-May-07 at 2:34 am | Permalink
Marc: My Words wrote:
ALT.NET, Judgement and Common Sense…
…
Posted on 21-May-07 at 4:54 am | Permalink
Michael Goldobin wrote:
Let’s make an ALT.NET the mainstream then:)
Posted on 22-May-07 at 3:08 pm | Permalink
ALT.NET « Re.Mark wrote:
[…] 22 05 2007 Via Marc’s post, I came across ALT.NET and Scott Hanselman posing the question “Is Microsoft losing the Alpha Geeks?” Ayende […]
Posted on 22-May-07 at 5:58 pm | Permalink
si wrote:
Java isn’t mainstream?
There are more jobs for Java than .NET, at least in Australia.
Posted on 25-May-07 at 3:26 am | Permalink
Dave wrote:
Surely parts of the Java community are mainstream. There’s, I’d argue, an ALT.Java thing too… witness the trend away from EJB toward Spring/Hibernate/etc. That and a lot of the things influencing my style of work now were started by agilists working on Java projects (JUnit, ant).
Posted on 25-May-07 at 9:20 am | Permalink
SOne wrote:
I dont get it. Scott Bellware is not one you can take advice from. He lost credibility with his stupid appeareance in the Code Room Pilot. And being and MVP and not knowing a shit about to use MS techs.
What a looser…
Posted on 28-May-07 at 12:24 pm | Permalink
Scott Bellware wrote:
Doh! I was wondering where my credibilty went! Thanks, SOne. I’ll head back to the CodeRoom and see if I left it there. I think I might have left it under my copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Overkill Web Frameworks. Perhaps you’d like to meet me there and we can see once and for all if I know my stuff. My rules though… none of this drag-and-drop ASP .NET identity provider crap to get in the way of TDD.
Posted on 30-May-07 at 3:33 pm | Permalink
Kevin wrote:
Ha. So anyways I was thinking more about ALT.COM, and how you must really be into S&M…
Posted on 03-Jun-07 at 9:51 pm | Permalink
Dave wrote:
Funny though not quite. Strangely I’ve had that theory floated before. I should learn not to title posts “Metaphor Fetishism” I suppose.
Posted on 04-Jun-07 at 12:20 am | Permalink
Jon Rowett’s Workblog » ALT.NET web developer needed wrote:
[…] webforms + MVC, NHibernate + ActiveRecord, ASP.NET AJAX, Sql Server 2005. You are, or want to be, "ALT.NET". Drop me a line if you’re interested: […]
Posted on 06-Jun-07 at 6:05 am | Permalink
Jay Flowers wrote:
I would like to comment on the name ALT.NET. I agree with what David Laribee meant and Ayende clarified. I think that others are getting off track and forgetting that the central principle is to focus on the solutions that the tools enable. This requires and open mind: to be available to change no matter where it comes from. This is an inclusive frame of mind. The word ALT pushes away from the core of what David tried to capture in the label. I would like to propose a change in the label: Noble.NET. Everything that David describes is noble. There is nothing about the word noble that depends on excluding. ALT depends on some people being IN and some people being OUT. This creates the us and them mentality which is always an unhealthy place to be. Everyone can become a Noble.NET developer.
Posted on 06-Jun-07 at 4:48 pm | Permalink
Unevenly Distributed : the ‘bee log / ALT.NET wrote:
[…] ‘bee log / ALT.NET Filed under: development dotnet principles programmingthe ‘bee log / ALT.NET: “What does it mean to be to be ALT.NET? In short it […]
Posted on 06-Jun-07 at 6:12 pm | Permalink
JayFlowers > Noble.NET wrote:
[…] would like to comment on the name ALT.NET. I agree with what David Laribee meant and Ayende clarified. I think that others are getting off track and forgetting that the […]
Posted on 06-Jun-07 at 9:34 pm | Permalink
JrzyShr Dev Guy : Shaking out the Innovation wrote:
[…] tools, and they love them. It seems there’s even a moniker, created by NY’s own David Laribee, that is starting to spread to describe the people who use them: “ALT.NET”. Roy […]
Posted on 11-Jun-07 at 9:31 am | Permalink
MSDN Blog Postings · Shaking out the Innovation wrote:
[…] they love them. It seems there’s even a moniker, created by NY’s own David Laribee, that is starting to spread to describe the people who use them: “ALT.NET“. […]
Posted on 11-Jun-07 at 10:38 am | Permalink
Como pasar de MVP a Microsoft Most Wanted y el movimiento ALT.NET - Acercate a .Net wrote:
[…] se está promoviendo un movimiento que ha sido bautizado como ALT.NET que intenta ser una alternativa para el pensamiento más clásico de Microsoft. Para considerarse […]
Posted on 16-Jun-07 at 5:43 pm | Permalink
Como pasar de MVP a Microsoft Most Wanted y el movimiento ALT.NET - Clic Compulsivo wrote:
[…] se está promoviendo un movimiento que ha sido bautizado como ALT.NET que intenta ser una alternativa para el pensamiento más clásico de Microsoft. Para considerarse […]
Posted on 16-Jun-07 at 5:43 pm | Permalink
Clic Compulsivo : Como pasar de MVP a Microsoft Most Wanted y el movimiento ALT.NET wrote:
[…] se está promoviendo un movimiento que ha sido bautizado como ALT.NET que intenta ser una alternativa para el pensamiento más clásico de Microsoft. Para considerarse […]
Posted on 16-Jun-07 at 5:48 pm | Permalink
Emilio Velardiez's Blog : Como pasar de MVP a Microsoft Most Wanted y el movimiento ALT.NET wrote:
[…] se está promoviendo un movimiento que ha sido bautizado como ALT.NET que intenta ser una alternativa para el pensamiento más clásico de Microsoft. Para considerarse […]
Posted on 16-Jun-07 at 5:50 pm | Permalink
Christopher Bennage : Best Practices, Training, & Tools wrote:
[…] Ayende already hit on this idea, but I guess that it did not sink in for me. I love these tools, but I just wish that they were not so conspicuous in what I consider to be a better way of doing software development. […]
Posted on 18-Jun-07 at 6:31 pm | Permalink
ALT.NET « perhaps wrote:
[…] un approccio e strumenti ALTernativi a quelli proposti da Microsoft. Tutto è iniziato da un post di David Laribee che rimbalzando tra i vari blog ha creato un nuovo movimento… e io credo di […]
Posted on 29-Jun-07 at 8:55 am | Permalink
the ‘bee log / The ALT.NET Conference wrote:
[…] Bellware made it happen and makes it official. There’s going to be an ALT.NET Conference in Austin, TX on October 5th-7th. So cool! The conference will be run in an Open […]
Posted on 25-Jul-07 at 11:54 am | Permalink
JupiterMoonbeam wrote:
Although I think the label will stick now I personally think Indie.NET has a nice ring to it.
In the UK Indie is what we call alternative music but Indie stresses the independent from the mainstream (though many indie bands go onto become mainstream).
Therefore Indie.NETers would be “Independent Thinking” over Alternative which IMHO fits better with what the label is trying to signify.
Posted on 03-Aug-07 at 4:55 am | Permalink
Jay R. Wren - lazy dawg evarlast » Blog Archive » It isn't about the tools. It is about what the tools get you. wrote:
[…] is the phrase that David Laribee used in his ALT.NET post back on April […]
Posted on 04-Aug-07 at 9:26 pm | Permalink
Why ASP.Net? — sideline wrote:
[…] you’re interested in being a better programmer (or using the hot tools that are part of that ALT.Net group), you need more than ASP.Net can supply out of the […]
Posted on 08-Aug-07 at 10:45 pm | Permalink
Integrating the world….continuously » Blog Archive » Alt.Net Open Space Conference | Austin, TX | October 5 - 7, 2007 wrote:
[…] a post by Dave Laribee, one of the conference hosts, he answers the question “What does it mean to […]
Posted on 21-Aug-07 at 12:05 pm | Permalink
A Microsoft Conspiracy « braincells2pixels.net wrote:
[…] term ALT.Net has been gaining a lot of momentum. There is even a conference. A while back Scott Hanselman raised […]
Posted on 19-Sep-07 at 8:20 pm | Permalink
Charlie Poole wrote:
Andy Stopford just asked me if I was planning to attend the the ALT.NET conference. I said “What’s that?” He expressed dismay that I hadn’t heard about it, since I write NUnit, which he thinks of as an ALT.NET tool.
Tracking it down via google, I eventually found this blog, which originated the term. This seems as good a place as any to post a comment on how the term strikes me.
It’s an interesting term, seeming to suggest a reaching out to a broader community, but at the same time containing the proprietary “.NET” as a suffix. Folks who are writing about it seem not to see the irony. In practice, it actually seems to denote a subset of the broader .NET community, those interested in tools not produced by non-Microsoft tools.
Being part of a “community” is different from working with a particluar platform. I’m not part of the .NET community, mostly by choice, so I obviously can’t be part of the subset that is ALT.NET. Personally, I think that’s too bad, both for that new community and for me and others like me, for whom it might have provided an alternative to the unwelcoming (there I said it) .NET “community.”
So my suggestion is to rethink ALT.NET as a subset of the .NET community and start reaching outside of it - into the agile and TDD world, for example - maybe even into the world of alternatives TO
.NET, where lots of cool tools are being developed, many of which happen to work quite well on .NET.
Charlie
Posted on 21-Sep-07 at 3:41 pm | Permalink
Philly ALT.NET « Hundred Worlds wrote:
[…] Coined by David Laribee, “ALT.NET” is a movement in the .NET community where developers, as defined by Ayende is “about […]
Posted on 29-Sep-07 at 10:38 am | Permalink
Bob On Development » Tool Junkies vs. the Critical Path in Software Development Suites wrote:
[…] experimentation. A whole slew of developers like myself pretty much stick with Visual Studio. The ALT.NET movement sometimes characterizes us as Morts, although that’s not necessarily or even often […]
Posted on 30-Sep-07 at 2:22 pm | Permalink
you've been HAACKED wrote:
ALT.NET Should Be Divisive, But Not Contrarian…
ALT.NET Should Be Divisive, But Not Contrarian…
Posted on 06-Oct-07 at 1:29 pm | Permalink
Books and bits » ALT.NET wrote:
[…] It even has a name ALT.NET a term create by David Larabee. […]
Posted on 06-Oct-07 at 3:28 pm | Permalink
Alt.net IS NOT Devisive | Adam Tybor's Blog wrote:
[…] and is divisive I remind of you David Laribee’s post several months ago about proposing the alt.net name. Now how can that mission be unclear, divisive, or […]
Posted on 08-Oct-07 at 1:20 pm | Permalink
Independents Hall » All work and no play? - This Is The Way Philly Does Coworking wrote:
[…] Well…I wasn’t the only one complaining, the only one looking for a better way. Enter Alt.net, a group of asp.net developers looking for better use of open standards and best practices in dot […]
Posted on 09-Oct-07 at 11:13 am | Permalink
Dion's Blog wrote:
[ALT.NET] De kritische .NET developer…
…
Posted on 09-Oct-07 at 11:58 am | Permalink
LONDON ALT.NET User Group? at The Social Programmer wrote:
[…] RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Ian Cooper has opened up a conversation about a localised version of ALT.NET over at his blog Staccato […]
Posted on 11-Oct-07 at 10:55 am | Permalink
OneOfSix wrote:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to ALT.NET…
…
Posted on 17-Oct-07 at 12:59 am | Permalink
ASP.NET Applications wrote:
I’m not sure that David Larabee named the term ALT.NET.
Anyway, great blog.
Posted on 17-Oct-07 at 7:58 am | Permalink