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You might also look at purchasing a Visual Studio add-in like Code Rush. It can really speed up dev time and reduce keystrokes. No affiliation, just a happy customer.

This guy is a complete moron. First, it's called the CLI, not the CIL. Second, it's called the Windows Runtime or WinRT and it runs .NET apps and HTML5/js apps. This is all quite plain to anyone that has even a tiny understanding of the system. This architecture diagram has been posted for quite some time, and clearly shows C# and VB as well as C/C++ apps running under WinRT/Metro.

Hi, I'm the "complete moron" who wrote the article. I most definitely meant CIL and not CLI, as I was referring to the Common Intermediate Language, and not the Command Line Interface. One is used to interact with an operating system through mostly text (curses and cursor-based terminal graphics being a stark exception), and the other allows multiple human-written programming languages to be compiled to a common bytecode form for interpretation by a .NET virtual machine runtime, and the basis of this article was that the same VM can be ported to Windows 8 on ARM in place of Metro apps. And your diagram does not clearly note anywhere that it is valid for Windows 8 on ARM as it is for x86/x86-64. Next time, don't be so quick to jump to conclusions and throw the words "moron" and "idiot" around. Thank you in advance.

This guy is a complete moron. First, it's called the CLI, not the CIL. Second, it's called the Windows Runtime or WinRT and it runs .NET apps and HTML5/js apps. This is all quite plain to anyone that has even a tiny understanding of the system. This architecture diagram has been posted for quite some time, and clearly shows C# and VB as well as C/C++ apps running under WinRT/Metro.

Just watch their video!
http://tv.devexpress.com/#dxhelmet.movie

It's DevExpress Refactor! for C++. The link is there:

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Visual_Studio_Add-in/RefactorCPP/

It's a free download and it works pretty well, I have to say.

I seriously advocate the .net platform. With that get the following:

Open Source:

• Nant for builds
• Nunit for well, what do you think?
• NCover for coverage
• NDoc if you need to generate apis

Commercial:

• Visual Studio 2008 Pro or higher for development
• DevExpress DXperience Enterprise for a plethora easy and quick ui components, a wonderful ORM, and charting/reporting
• TypeMock Isolator Professional for a great mocking platform
• ReSharper 4.0 for quick and easy refactoring

Of course your version control server/tools are also an important aspect. I currently use subversion but maybe you need a distributed version control (to each his own).

I am rather experienced in both .net and java. I favor .net for web applications and desktop alike and point out that IronPython is a great dynamic language for scripting. Windows communication foundation is also unmatched in my opinion. It allows SOA implementations with virtually no plumbing.

Considering you're moving to a central platform, I'm assuming you can sell windows as the os. I will not mention my preferences but will note that Windows Server 2008 is a great improvement when compared with previous versions. I will also mention if you are planning on writing anything that will use WCF, you really should get 2008 to host it.

I do notice some concerns by commenters above in regards to the non-cross platform"ness" of .net. In response to those comments I point out the requirement of ONE single platform and associated tools. How does one be cross platform when targeting one platform? Good luck and I hope this post helps you in your decision.

Because I think that's very much the case for Visual Studio too. Stock VS2005 is usable, but look at some of the "plugins" made by jetbrains (ReSharper and dotTrace -- from the same guys that Make IntelliJ), devexpress (Refactor! and CodeRush), wholetomato (Visual Assist X) and a bunch of others.

I haven't seen such great plugins for any other IDEs.

Look at component developers, especially the larger ones like DevExpres. From using their stuff and purchasing the source code, I know that they have restrictions on what I can do with the Source Code provided. Modify their contract to suite yours, then you don't need a damn lawyer.

Also, be prepared to loose one programmer to the company, especially if they are happy with the product. If you are billing per hour, they will offer a job for less then they are paying. Be prepared, the programmer most seen as the asset will be the target, so keep them hidden and manage, or expose them and use as a spy.

I prefer to use contracts that I have to agree to as the bases of contracts I pass onto the customer, especially as I am web hosting reseller, the contract that binds me, binds my clients (with some additions).