---
title: "ALT.NET - Alternative tools and approaches to mainstream .NET"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/4/altnet-alternative-tools-and-approaches-to-mainstream-net.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/4/altnet-alternative-tools-and-approaches-to-mainstream-net.html"
published: "2007-06-04T06:50:55"
updated: "2007-06-04T06:50:55"
tags: ["General Software Devel..."]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "There's starting to be a lot of talk lately about working in an alternative way than the \"mainstream\" prescribed ways which most .NET and MS developers use in their day to day work. I'm still working out on my own what…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# ALT.NET - Alternative tools and approaches to mainstream .NET

By Roy Osherove June 4, 2007 In [General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel)

**Historical article** · Originally published June 4, 2007; technical details may be outdated.

There's starting to be a lot of talk lately about working in an alternative way than the "mainstream" prescribed ways which most .NET and MS developers use in their day to day work. I'm still working out on my own what does it mean, and the difference facets in this concept, but one thing is for sure - there is \*something\* out there which people are getting a hold of, and MS seems to be missing great deals of it. here are some points(Some overlaps, for sure):

**Update and clarifications:**

- I don't necessarily **agree** with the list here. It is what I **see** in other people. I'll post my thoughts on this later.
- Some items are grouped and compared not on a technical level, but on a logical or categorized level. For example, _comparing open source, SourceForge to Application Blocks and codeplex_ -the two are both open source in one way or another, but the ones on the right are MS-oriented, the left are not. So the right isn't necessarily **the inverse** of what's on the left. It may just as well be the same idea. Just seems to me it is less "hot" than the one on the right.

<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Hot</strong></td><td><strong>Not</strong></td></tr><tr><td><a href="http://www.castleproject.org/">Castle, ActiveRecord</a>,<br><a href="http://www.nhibernate.org/">NHibernate</a></td><td>DataSets, Dataset Designer, Entity Framework, MS Application Blocks</td></tr><tr><td>MVC,<a href="http://www.nunit.org/">NUnit</a>,<a href="http://www.castleproject.org/">MonoRail</a></td><td>Web Forms, SCSF, VSTS, MSTest</td></tr><tr><td><a href="http://www.xprogramming.com/">XP, TDD</a>, <a href="http://www.controlchaos.com/">Scrum</a></td><td>MSF Agile, MSF For CMMI</td></tr><tr><td>Evolutionary Design and Development</td><td>Big Design Up Front</td></tr><tr><td>Ruby + IronRuby, Python + IronPyton, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Language_Runtime">DLR</a>, Silverlight(?)</td><td>?</td></tr><tr><td>OR\M (NHibernate, LLBLGen&nbsp; etc..)</td><td>DLinq, Data Access Block, DataSets, Plain ADO. NET</td></tr><tr><td>Open Source (Mono, SourceForge)</td><td>Application Blocks, CodePlex</td></tr><tr><td>MVC and MVP (RoR, MonoRail..)</td><td>Web Forms, CAB, Smart Client Factory</td></tr><tr><td>CVS, SVN</td><td>VSS, VSTS Source Control</td></tr><tr><td>Build Automation and CI<br>(CI Factory, NAnt, FinalBuilder, CruiseControl..)</td><td>Team Build</td></tr><tr><td>TDD and Unit Testing<br>NUnit, MbUnit, RhinoMocks, NMock, TypeMock</td><td>MSTest for unit testing, VSTS</td></tr><tr><td>Subtext, DasBlog, WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, FeedBurner</td><td>Microsoft MSN Spaces, Community Server(?)</td></tr><tr><td>Simplicity in Design</td><td>P&amp;P</td></tr><tr><td>Working at Google</td><td>Working at MS</td></tr><tr><td>Google Gears</td><td>Smart Client, MS Ajax</td></tr><tr><td>.NET 3.X (WF, WPF. Silverlight)</td><td>.NET 2.0</td></tr><tr><td>DI, IoC, Spring for .NET</td><td>Object Builder</td></tr><tr><td>Conferences:<br>OSCon, RubyCon, Code Camps, DevTeach..</td><td>VSLive, TechEd, DevConnections..</td></tr></tbody></table>

Am I missing something?

## More in General Software Devel...

[All posts in General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel)

- Jun 6, 2007

    ### [Scrum - What it looks like in the real world](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/6/scrum-what-it-looks-like-in-the-real-world.html)

- Jun 5, 2007

    ### [Running Matlab, Python and Tcl scripts from .NET](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/5/running-matlab-python-and-tcl-scripts-from-net.html)

- Jun 4, 2007

    ### [Is Google Gears a Disaster Waiting to Happen?](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/4/is-google-gears-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen.html)

- Jun 3, 2007

    ### [Train to be a Keyboard Master with Keyboard Jedi](https://osherove.com/blog/2007/6/3/train-to-be-a-keyboard-master-with-keyboard-jedi.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

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- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
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- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/