I am a generalist. I like Ruby and Groovy, Rails and Grails, Objective C and Python sometimes. I use bash scripts and I use Java and .NET too. I work on a MacBook Pro running OS X and a Thinkpad running Windows XP. I run my server on Ubuntu Linux. I use to run Linux at home a lot more, but have basically just switched to the Mac, the mullet of OSes - business on top and party in the back! (No I don't have a mullet, yes I love the Mac OS X.)
But this post was about .NET right? Well the whole idea behind ALT.NET is that we have learned from our experiences. Whether I'm doing a web app in Grails, a handheld application in .NET CF or a desktop application using Objective C I want to bring all of the experience that I have in each of them to the game. When I do ASP.NET I want to leverage the things I've seen using Hibernate and Spring in Java and MVC in Rails, Grails and Objective C. I like to think that I fit the solution to the problem and not the other way around. Having a broad based experience helps with that.
ALT.NET is about bringing all of those ideas along with the ideas of Agile development, testing, continuous integration, refactoring and generally embracing change to the .NET world. It's about evaluating tools on their merits regardless of the vendor. Microsoft is just another "3rd Party vendor" and gets no special treatment.
Dan Miser is a former bigwig in the Delphi community who now sits next to me at work. He's a .NET guy who owns a Mac and got excited about Rails. He's taken it upon himself to organize an ALT.NET in Milwaukee.
Do you believe that choosing the right tools doesn't depend on who makes them? Do you believe that Open Source works? Do you know more than one language and more than one platform? Check out his site for more information.