Hey Malek,
You said you personally like .net, may be that's because it's got some advantage over java in the sense that it gives more control to the developer (going beyond abstraction, touching low level stuff), but as i'm far as i'm concerned, I want to tell you that I was disappointed when I read about the asp .net Pet store application! All they could do to make it seem like outperforming the java version is to do some tunning to the database schema, sql queries, use of stores procedures, caching... Is that about ASP.net or the application's design? Well, the benchmarking done at this level had no sense, as they had to compare apples with bananas! and you know what! the java version was later on updated with the new same design as in the asp.net version, and guess what! it actually gave superior results WITHOUT using any caching. Microsoft has got some marketing skills, but not enough technical skills to make a decent framework, a framework that would match its marketing efforts...
Regards.

Emnaoui,
I believe you're talking about a bencmark from 2002 (pet store with the new schema) that was checked in its time, and the results were falacious as they they counted NACKs as valid responses... That in turn got corrected and results in favor of .Net were shown, which in turn was rejected by the J2EE community as being a comparison of oracle and SQL sever...

It would be foolish of me to keep on discussing this as this is were it starts to be religious. I don't want to discuss perfrmance as a big differentiating factor, as performance is usually an architectural thing rather than a technological aspect...

When I said I personnaly prefer .Net, I meant the elegance, the robustness, the possibility to control things at different levels including very low level when needed, the fact that one does take full advantage of the platform at a high level of abstraction, ...etc.

Dear Malik,
Thanks for replying as fast as you could. Well I guess that's a point of view I would have to respect as I got some admiration for this "genius" you are, mainly because I'm a big fan of yours. I was lucky enough to be present in one of your presentations that did cover this same topic, at that time I was unfamiliar with .Net concepts and architecture. I guess this blog will be one way to boost everyone's learning curve if you would accept of course to share with us your knowledge and preferences while discarding your belonging to Microsoft.
Thanks again!

Emnaoui,
Thanks for the kind word, but I certainly am no "genius". I am a very simple hard working person, that tries to improve his knowledge everyday, and that desn't shy away from confronting other oinions, in good respect of differening positions. As much as I have my point of view and beliefs, as much as I am far from being a Microsoft "drone" (actually, I don't think I know any "drone" that works at Microsoft). As for me blogging about what I know about .Net discading my belonging to Microsoft, I have to make sure I am not saying something that can be used against my employer. That is fairness. I am still the same, but I have to make sure my opinions are not used as more than they are...