Developing For Linux With Visual Studio

By Laurence Moroney

November 21, 2005

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For the longest time, there's been a divide in the development community over which is the best technology to use for developing and running enterprise applications. On the one side is the Microsoft stack, and on the other side are the Java and open source communities.

The Microsoft stack, backed by the world's largest software company and a myriad of products and support options, is a complete one-stop solution. It includes operating system, application platform, development framework, and tools. The long-used Visual Basic (now VB.NET) language and the quickly-adopted C# are both backed up by the Visual Studio suite of development tools, and Microsoft has earned developer support because these tools can be extraordinarily productive and reduce time-to-market sharply.

On the other hand, Java, and in particular its Enterprise Edition (J2EE), are compelling because their cross-platform capabilities are not limited to a particular operating system platform or application server. J2EE offers robustness, scalability, manageability and security. A perceived weakness of the Microsoft platform, security, remains a top concern for enterprises, particularly in light of the barrage of identity theft, viruses, worms, and other demons that continue to evolve and threaten sensitive data and systems.

The two sides might effectively reach equilibrium, if it weren't for the third factor in the fray. I am of course referring to Linux.

Linux, the "free" operating system, began as a hobby project by Linus Torvalds and grew like wildfire in the enthusiast community. Although it didn't take long for enterprises to become interested in it, Linux didn't become a serious option until companies like Red Hat and Novell developed professional commercial editions. Now backed by warranties, complete with installers and graphical user interfaces that rival that of Microsoft Windows, commercial enterprise Linux has become a reality. Finally the giant IBM put Linux front and center in its enterprise strategy, and it is now the biggest viable competitor to Microsoft in the operating systems space beyond the desktop.

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