Looking down that list, you would *expect* to break into a sweat. But, oddly enough, NONE of these tools is really equivalent to another one. There probably is a tool that is best and most comfortable for realizing any given idea. And while I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were a significant number of learning curves here, much of what you learn — smart development patterns, visual techniques, good encapsulation and documentation, good object-oriented programming — will serve you will with all of them.

Of course, I’ll feel even better about them if I have some really good beer. And just as development tools, I wouldn’t want to have to choose only ONE kind of beer … you’ve got your blondes, your pale ales, your reds, your darks, your lagers … and ALL taste better when Microsoft’s buying.

Microsoft has released a .Net runtime as a plugin for OS X web browsers to run some of its latest tools. Check out the thread on ars - it looks potentially very interesting, and comes from a real syntax based programing background. The demos are pretty nice I have to say.