Thanks for the feedback -- I didn't know that .NET is a platform. Obviously.

The bigger problem I have is with Microsoft; I'm not happy with any supplier who decides, at their own convenience, that a pre-existing product will become unavailable after a certain date, or functionally hobbled somehow. That's why open source is great -- once you have the source code for something, you are free to do whatever you want.

And Perl, as you said, has this amazing community that is available to you for feedback, help, suggestions, whatever you need. Awesome.