6 ms·

I feel so conventional! Windows Server 2008, Sql Server IIS Visual Studio Quickbooks & Indinero Authorize.net Google Apps for mail

vyrotek 16y ago
Hardly conventional! This is what we use too. Except IIS and Sql Server are on Windows Azure.
Zak 16y ago
I'm inclined to say the MS stack is fairly unconventional for startups these days. One decent heuristic for whether a decision is conventional is whether your peers are likely to ask "why did you do that?". If a startup's stack is Rails on EC2, few in the startup world would bother to question it. So, why did you do that?
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  I'm going to guess that that's what the person/team had experience with already. I've not known many people who were already technical developers who started a venture and swapped over to entirely 'new to them' tech just because it's what some other people were using. Go with what you know and have mastery of already - you've got enough going against you starting a new venture already - don't add to it by trying to learn something like django or rails just because someone on HN or TC used it too. That said, using 'unconventional' tech may make it harder to find more devs in the future if they're needed. Or... it may mean that you're simply pulling from a different pool. If you're one of 15 rails-based ventures someone is looking to join, you won't stand out as much as the one Perl-based operation.
- profquail 16y ago
  Well, I can't answer for Stronico, but we use a similar stack (Visual Studio 2010, Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2) for development and ASP.NET MVC 2 / IIS / SQL Server / Azure for our website. Using something else wasn't even really a question, since our product is .NET-based, and I'd already had a few years of experience as an ASP.NET dev. I'd bet that nearly all of the other startups using a Microsoft-based stack have a senior / lead developer who has a significant amount of C# / .NET experience.
dy 16y ago
I'm primarily a Linux/OSX developer and use Ruby for most of my web stuff - but I have to admit, for anything desktop related or dealing with a lot of Windows clients (remote installation of services etc) Windows really takes the cake. JRuby has helped a lot with this recently but Java still looks/feels less natural than .net apps and often there's no cross-platform need in this space. Also, the Windows development tooling is still way ahead of the stuff you can get with Eclipse. I personally use Vim for my Ruby development, but intellisense that works can be really, really for exploring APIs or just navigating new projects. That being said, I've also liked the Xcode environment for the short amount of time I played with it. If Microsoft played better with other ecosystems, I would definitely consider bringing more of it into my workflow, but as it is I'd rather use open tools than best of breed.

vyrotek 16y ago

Hardly conventional! This is what we use too. Except IIS and Sql Server are on Windows Azure.

Zak 16y ago

I'm inclined to say the MS stack is fairly unconventional for startups these days. One decent heuristic for whether a decision is conventional is whether your peers are likely to ask "why did you do that?". If a startup's stack is Rails on EC2, few in the startup world would bother to question it. So, why did you do that?

mgkimsal 16y ago
I'm going to guess that that's what the person/team had experience with already. I've not known many people who were already technical developers who started a venture and swapped over to entirely 'new to them' tech just because it's what some other people were using. Go with what you know and have mastery of already - you've got enough going against you starting a new venture already - don't add to it by trying to learn something like django or rails just because someone on HN or TC used it too. That said, using 'unconventional' tech may make it harder to find more devs in the future if they're needed. Or... it may mean that you're simply pulling from a different pool. If you're one of 15 rails-based ventures someone is looking to join, you won't stand out as much as the one Perl-based operation.
profquail 16y ago
Well, I can't answer for Stronico, but we use a similar stack (Visual Studio 2010, Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2) for development and ASP.NET MVC 2 / IIS / SQL Server / Azure for our website. Using something else wasn't even really a question, since our product is .NET-based, and I'd already had a few years of experience as an ASP.NET dev. I'd bet that nearly all of the other startups using a Microsoft-based stack have a senior / lead developer who has a significant amount of C# / .NET experience.

dy 16y ago

I'm primarily a Linux/OSX developer and use Ruby for most of my web stuff - but I have to admit, for anything desktop related or dealing with a lot of Windows clients (remote installation of services etc) Windows really takes the cake. JRuby has helped a lot with this recently but Java still looks/feels less natural than .net apps and often there's no cross-platform need in this space. Also, the Windows development tooling is still way ahead of the stuff you can get with Eclipse. I personally use Vim for my Ruby development, but intellisense that works can be really, really for exploring APIs or just navigating new projects. That being said, I've also liked the Xcode environment for the short amount of time I played with it. If Microsoft played better with other ecosystems, I would definitely consider bringing more of it into my workflow, but as it is I'd rather use open tools than best of breed.