Don't think you're being unbiased here. Using C# inevitably means you will be shelling out for various tools along the way that you would never have paid for if you went with something like Python. Granted, if your business is making any money these costs are not going to have any real impact, but passing it off as 'no costs' is silly.
Funny you mention python as, until last month when PyCharm community edition was released, there was no decent and free IDE for python. :)
I can't think of any tools for .net that are really must-haves and that cost money. Maybe resharper but you can survive without it. There are free profilers, decompilers, analysis tools, SCMs, you name it. The only thing you don't get with express is integration with plugins in the IDE. Using .NET with free tools is also easy, connecting to MySQL is just as easy as to MS SQL Server to give an example.
Meanwhile, Python Tools for Visual Studio is a great IDE for Python, IMHO. Of course, being a free plugin for VS, you need a paid license of VS to use it.
No you can just download the free isolated/integrated Visual Studio shells - PTVS works just fine. And, imho, it's the best Python IDE I've worked with (I mostly use pandas/numpy/scipy)
How am I biased? I don't work for Microsoft. If using a technology stack makes one biased and thereby (as you imply) invalidates their opinion, then let's just shut down Hacker News right now because nobody is capable of expressing an unbiased opinion in your opinion.
The reality is that Microsoft has free development tools that millions of people use - for free.
Just to throw in another point here - while the development tools may be free, licencing SQL Server(s) for production use can be very expensive & convoluted.
licencing SQL Server(s) for production use can be very expensive & convoluted.
It's not convoluted at all.
Want a free on-premises database? Simple. Use SQL Server Express. That will handle a database up to 10 GB.
Want to have Microsoft host your SQL Database for you? Simple. Use Windows Azure SQL Database. $10 per month for 1GB and then $3.96 per GB per month after that up to 10 GB and then cheaper from there.
Have you ever even looked into using Microsoft software or did you just immediately dismiss it without looking at it?
