Just looked it up, running ASP.NET MVC 4. Not surprising, tech concentration is pretty regional and this part of the country is very heavily Microsoft focused.
A further testament to the quality of their effort, in that it's according to you a good match to their local technical base, we're pretty sure it scales up to the level needed for the state (intuitively and per the evidence), costs of licenses is I'm sure noise for the effort, etc. etc.
Why do people still say stuff like 'cost of licenses'; the cost of licensing Windows Server for a system even at large scale (think StackOverflow) is so small it barely qualifies mention.
Unless you are talking about licensing SQL Server per processor, the cost of licenses is unimportant.
Well, seeing as how I like persistent data, as I'm sure this site does, SQL Server licenses would be a factor.
But I was more thinking of the shoestring startup shooting initially for ramen profitability, where every unnecessary, can't instantly scale dollar spent is one too many.
This is an effort with a serious budget, where today's back end costs of all sorts are I'm pretty a very small part of it all, probably even bandwidth.
This is exactly the problem, people think Microsoft shops have an allergy to open source? You ever stop to think that maybe people are just using the best tools they can for the job?
> This is exactly the problem, people think Microsoft shops have an allergy to open source?
Yes. That's exactly what I think. So, what I'm about to say isn't in any kind of defense. I'm just going to document my personal bias for all to read and hope to be enlightened:
I don't think anyone really chooses to run a Microsoft Server, other than Exchange-Server[1]. I think people are forced into it because of at least one of the following: 1) Their corporation demands it, 2)They don't have the skills to use Linux or OSX, or 3) That individual may have the skills but the other people on the team that need to be able to help out, do not have the skills.
Anecdotal: I once interviewed in a place that had Microsoft servers and SQL Servers, I asked them if they'd consider using Linux. They said "Oh, we're a Microsoft-Gold-Partner, so no Linux here." This was in 2007 for a small-to-mid company somewhere in San Francisco.
So IFF I'm correct about the above, then anytime someone chooses a Microsoft server(not counting anything related to Exchange)... I assume the whole shop is on MS-stack. I might be horribly wrong; I'm posting this to have other HN people correct my terrible thought-process.
1. Because Exchange really, truly, works and it's hard to get everyone to agree on a tech to handle emails+meetings. Exchange seems to be the most widely supported choice.
People run Microsoft software for a variety of reasons, and while it may shock people on HN and elsewhere - often times it is for reasons very similar to your Exchange statement at the end. It really truly works. SQL Server is a fantastic RDBMS at the mid and high end of the market. 1000 people are rolling their eyes right now because once upon a time they touched a system that used SQL Server and it was terrible and the developers were not happy. Give me a break, you can write crappy code for any system and SQL Server is no different.
As for Windows running the server, it has been a very long time since anyone tried to claim it inferior as a web server - about 5 years ago when Scott Guthrie's team made IIS modular the story changed and it is now every bit as capable as Apache.
Don't worry though, I wont try to defend Sharepoint.
The mix is there though, I have clients who run Windows on the server and Oracle as the DB. Also MySQL, Raven and one using Redis as a backing store. I have a client who runs a rails shops and use SQL Server as the backend because its BI stack is so strong and even have a client who is a 'Microsoft shop' who is considering ASP.NET MVC running on Linux pointing at a MongoDB repo.
What I recommend is based on the feature set they need and their access to talent, the cost of server licensing can sometimes play in the discussion but only at the lower end of the market (startups, small business).
Couldn't agree more. As someone from the area, I have trouble finding anyone who knows anything about linux. Interview questions about basic tools/tasks, such as ssh, grep, ps, vim, etc. are met with blank stares. But they all (claim to) know c#. And on the other hand, I don't see many jobs at all with requirements outside of a MS stack, so we're stuck in a bit of a chicken-egg problem here.
