I was just reading a blog post from Adam Caudill and it got me thinking about Ruby on Rails has done for web developers using the Microsoft stack. The first web MVC framework that I used was ASP.Net MVC and I loved it. I used it from the day it came out and used version two and three also. However, I’ve more recently switched to primarily working with Ruby on Rails when I have the opportunity instead of ASP.Net MVC.
That said, I still love ASP.Net MVC and would recommend it just as highly as Ruby on Rails. Both have their pros and cons and both are very good frameworks.
I think it’s very cool that an open source MVC web framework has pushed a hugh multi-billion dollar company into investing heavily in their web development stack in order to compete. With the way Ruby on Rails has improved and become a very high quality and productive web framework, I would think that without the introduction of ASP.Net MVC (and the continuous improvement) that Ruby on Rails would be completely dominating the web world right now. Instead, there is still a HUGE community in both camps and the web has become a much better place because of “competition”.
That’s the way it’s supposed to work. I love it.